Why are Getter and Setter better than directly changing and retrieving fields ? or What is the significance of variable hiding in Java ? or Why it's preferred to keep variables private and allow their access through getter and setter methods ?

Interview Questions and Answers

Q1. Why are Getter and Setter better than directly changing and retrieving fields ?

or

What is the significance of variable hiding in Java ?

or

Why it's preferred to keep variables private and allow their access through getter and setter methods ?

Core Java

Ans. 1. Methods can participate in runtime polymorphism whereas member variables cannot.

For example -

Vehicle vehicle = new Car();

car.getObjVariable();// will return variable defined in Car

whereas

car.variable

will return the variable from Car class irrespective of the object it holds.

2. Validations can be performed before setting the variables.

3. If the input format changes or some other value or calculated value needs to be returned , that can be absorbed by making change ( wrapping ) in the setter and getter. By this the call to method from outside or interface to the object will remain the same.

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