Encapsulation w/ getters and setters

Question 1

What are the 3 benefits of encapsulation?

Answer 1

Hides implementation details
Simplifies maintenance
Controls client access

Question 2

A getter is also called a….?

Answer 2

accessor

Question 3

A setter is also called a….?

Answer 3

mutator

Question 4

What are setters used to do?

Answer 4

Set or update an existing variable’s value, especially when the instance data is defined as private inside a class

Question 5

What is the naming convention for getters?

Answer 5

getters begin with “get” followed by the name of the field using camel case

Question 6

What is the naming convention for setters?

Answer 6

getters begin with “set” followed by the name of the field using camel case

Question 7

Do you need to know how the getter method works and what’s “under the hood”?

Answer 7

No, the getter simply returns the value of the private attribute

Question 8

What flexibility does encapsulation give that can help deal with problems like the “Year 2000” (Y2K)?

Answer 8

Unlike other programing languages at the time with Java encapsulation the attribute names or data types may change. As long as the name of the getter methods stay the same, the program still works.

Question 9

What is the return type of a setter?

Answer 9

Void because nothing is returned

Question 10

What is the return type of a getter?

Answer 10

Whatever the data type of the field is

Question 11

What arguments do a getter method use?

Answer 11

None

Question 12

What arguments do a setter method use?

Answer 12

A single argument of the same type are the data field

Question 13

What does the “this.” in this.year = year; allow us to do?

Answer 13

It allows us to use the same variable name in our setter method as the variable we are setting. This eliminates the need to come up with a different name for every argument.