Encapsulation

You likely have an oven in your kitchen! While a lot is happening inside an oven, you interact with it through specific operations. For instance, you can adjust the temperature of the oven to change its state. The inner workings of an oven are not your concern; it is, in a way, a black box to you.

In software, as well as in real-life, objects are designed to encapsulate their state and behavior within a single unit, often referred to as a class. This unit provides the necessary structure for bundling data fields and methods that operate on that data.

public class Oven {
  private int temperature;

  public void setTemperature(int temperature) {
    this.temperature = temperature;
  }

  public void bake() {
    // Logic for baking
  }

  public void broil() {
    // Logic for broiling
  }

  // Other methods and fields...
}

Encapsulation, as described in this context, refers to the concept of bundling the state and behavior of an object within a single unit, known as a class.

Information Hiding

Similar to how an oven encapsulates its inner workings and presents specific operations to users, objects in software also encapsulate their internal state and expose a set of methods to interact with that state.

The state of an object is typically private and not directly visible to users. This concept, known as information hiding, restricts direct access to the object's state.

Furthermore, some of the object's behavior or responsibilities may also be hidden and only accessed internally by the object itself.

The visible behavior of an object is defined by its interface, which determines how it interacts with other objects.

In the provided example of the Oven class, the state, represented by the temperature variable, is encapsulated and kept private. Users cannot directly access or modify the temperature. Instead, they interact with the Oven object through methods like setTemperature(), bake(), and broil().

By defining an interface, encapsulation also enables the object to interact with other objects in a controlled manner. The interface determines how other objects can access and interact with the encapsulated object, providing a clear and well-defined boundary for communication.

Conclusion

Overall, encapsulation is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming that helps manage complexity, improve code organization, and promote strong encapsulated objects with well-defined interactions.

Encapsulation provides several benefits. It allows for better organization and structuring of code by grouping related data fields and methods together. It also promotes information hiding, preventing direct access to an object's internal state and ensuring that changes to the state are controlled through defined methods. This helps maintain data integrity and reduces the risk of unintended modifications.