(1) The level at which a subject is viewed or programmed. For example, the highest abstraction level of a system is the overall system, which includes everything. Each subsequent abstraction layer encapsulates the details below it. See
abstraction layer.
(2) In object technology, abstraction is one of the basic principles. It allows for creating user-defined and self-contained data types, known as objects. The details of the processing are contained within the object. See
object-oriented programming and
encapsulation.