Enabling Fuzzy Object Comparison in Modern Programming Platforms through Reflection

Comparison plays a determining role in many problems related to object management. Every modern programming language provides a comparison method (e.g. the equals method in Java) that allows us to compare two objects of any user-defined class. However, if we develop classes to represent objects imprecisely described using Fuzzy Subset Theory, the built-in method is no longer suitable. Fuzzy object comparison must be handled using a fuzzy equality concept, that is, resemblance relationships instead of classical equality. In this paper we present how to enable modern programming platforms so that classes with imprecise attributes can be developed and fuzzy objects of these classes can be easily compared. In particular, we introduce a fuzzyEquals method for a FuzzyObject class that can be used in user-defined classes without being overridden.