advantages and disadvantages of encapsulation in object oriented programming

Here, You can get Tutorials, Exercises, and Quizzes to practice and improve your Python skills. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. This allows for flexibility in the design of a class, as the implementation can be modified without affecting the interface. Both paradigms have been around for decades and have been used to build a vast array of applications. Polymorphism is the ability of an object to take on multiple forms. Then we set the value to that variable by using a public member function. If youve read our previous post about abstraction, you already saw several examples for encapsulation. In software systems, encapsulation refers to the bundling of data with the mechanisms or methods that operate on the data. Performance Java needs to be interpreted during runtime, which allows it to run on every operating system, but it also makes it perform slower than the languages like C and C++. When a method is publicly available, you need to ensure that its well documented and robustly handles any input values. Like we said before, Getter and Setter methods are not obliged to be part of that class. Answer: The program written can be reused. This beauty of encapsulation helps achieve abstraction and makes complex implementations look as easy as pressing a key. The constructor and the brewCoffee and addBeans methods are accessible by other classes to create a new instance of CoffeeMachine. By creating objects that contain the data and the behavior, developers can easily modify the objects to make changes to the application. Now, consider actions that a car can perform, such as moving, steering, honking, etc. Objects have a set of properties, which can be used to store and manipulate data, and methods, which are the actions that can be performed on the object. Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story. Benefits of encapsulation include: For the best encapsulation, object data should almost always be restricted to private or protected. An object is a self-contained unit of code and data, which are organized together to represent a single instance of a concept. The primary purpose of using getters and setters in object-oriented programs is to ensure data encapsulation. the action of enclosing something in or as if in a capsule. It basically chips away at Class, Object, Polymorphism, Abstraction, Encapsulation and Inheritance. Encapsulation is accomplished when each object inside the class keeps its state private. Encapsulation_Benefits EB_obj; The class members declared private are limited to the scope of the class and can be accessed only by the member methods inside the class. The authors of Design Patterns discuss the tension between inheritance and encapsulation at length and state that in their experience, designers overuse inheritance. For example, lets consider if some member we declared as private and we need to make it directly accessible from anywhere outside the class, so we just need to change the private keyword and write the public. It represents the kind of coffee that was brewed by the CoffeeMachine, e.g. If this definition of encapsulation is not clear to you, it may be because you are not familiar with the concept of abstraction. Protected data members are used when you implement inheritance and want to allow data members access to only child classes. What are the Various Access Specifiers for Java Classes? After reading this article, you will learn: Encapsulation in Python describes the concept of bundling data and methods within a single unit. You bundle a set of attributes that store the current state of the object with a set of methods using these attributes. Try your free, 14-day Retrace trial today! To implement proper encapsulation in Python, we need to use setters and getters. Code duplication is avoided, and reusability is increased. It allows private and protected access levels to prevent accidental data modification. 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Implementations of abstract data types, modules, and libraries, among other systems, also offer encapsulation. Two examples of popular object-oriented programming languages are Java and C++. Here comes the main sentence for our principle: An object should encapsulate its methods and variables inside a class and should use them when needed. This greatly simplifies the development process, as it allows developers to write code that is more generic and can be used in multiple contexts. With that pill, the ingredients of the medicine are the same as the first time it was mixed and the contents inside cannot be changed from the outside. Inheritance indicates that a subclass inherits attributes and methods from a base class. In this example, we create an Employee class by defining employee attributes such as name and salary as an instance variable and implementing behavior using work() and show() instance methods. There are three basic techniques to implement encapsulation in object oriented programming. To minimize risk, it is best to follow a strict "is-a" relationship when using inheritance. They claim that inheritance often breaks encapsulation, given that inheritance exposes a subclass to the details of its parent's implementation. In object-oriented programming, encapsulation is an attribute of object design. In that case, you can hide specific information and control access to the objects internal state. The data inside this unit is not accessible . }. It requires less maintenance and is more secured. If you choose to set the access level to public, make sure you understand the ramifications of the choice. As the names indicate, a getter method retrieves an attribute and a setter method changes it. Functional programming and object-oriented programming are two of the most popular programming paradigms. The client depends on the public interface and does not depend on details of the implementation. The methods can be changed and the code is reusable. The four main principles of object-oriented programming are encapsulation, abstraction, inheritance, and polymorphism. Advantages Re-usability: You can redevelop a program using a previous codes. In certain aspects, they can be repeated. Encapsulated codes in object oriented programming can be easily adaptable to new changes. Inheritance allows a parent-child relationship between objects. The available quantity of a drink changes over time. Lets examine how its done and unwrap some examples for this concept. Similarly, by only using setter methods, one can make a write-only class. The thing is they do these little actions in methods and methods can be manipulated by developers. So here is the summary of the comparison between inheritance and abstraction: Encapsulation can provide several benefits to a software system: Enjoy learning, Enjoy algorithms, Enjoy OOPS! Thorben Janssen January 7, 2022 Developer Tips, Tricks & Resources. That allows you to create a package internal and an external API. Encapsulation almost helps all of these aims of OOP and therefore it has been very important and necessary to learn. With that, we created a class that has changeable but non-usable variables. If we want to avoid this issue by using a Setter method, we should add a condition once to the Setter Method of age: Getter and Setter methods also let us create Read-Only Class and Write-Only Class. "Definition of Encapsulation in Computer Programming." [1] Encapsulation allows developers to present a consistent and usable interface which is independent of how a system is implemented internally. All the best for your future Python endeavors! This approach has a number of advantages, as well as some drawbacks, which we will explore. Encapsulation is one of the fundamental concepts in object-oriented programming (OOP), including abstraction, inheritance, and polymorphism. EB_obj.set(7); You can clone this and all other classes of the CoffeeMachine example project at https://github.com/thjanssen/Stackify-OopAbstraction. Founder of PYnative.com I am a Python developer and I love to write articles to help developers. In the above example, the salary is a private variable. It also provides the control functionality over the data, which means we can provide the logic inside the method per our requirement. However, this can limit the use of inheritance, as a subclass may not have access to the attributes of its base class. If youre familiar with any object-oriented programming language, you probably know these methods as getter and setter methods. Stay up to date with the latest in software development with Stackifys Developer Thingsnewsletter. Sharing helps me continue to create free Python resources. It is often used to implement an information-hiding mechanism. We call subclass which inherits some data from other classes, and superclass which is inherited. Object Oriented Programming Full Notes object oriented programming. We hope from this article you learn the Encapsulation benefits. Also, try Stackifys free code profiler, Prefix, to write better code on your workstation. The computer then processes this active circuit to produce the desired result. Definition of Encapsulation in Computer Programming. In Python, private variables are not hidden fields like in other programming languages. In this topic, we will look at the Encapsulation Benefits. In object-oriented programming languages, and other related fields, encapsulation refers to one of two related but distinct notions, and sometimes to the combination thereof:. First, we create the class name as Encapsulation_Benefits after that, inside the class, we create a private member function with variable y. No, right? It means that all of the object's data is contained and hidden in the object and access to it . By keeping information hidden, or we can say that it is private in programming language and offering public obvious assistance techniques, the part of the object turns out to be obvious to different objects. have attached links for Skip to document Ask an Expert To master OOP a beginner must learn new, abstract concepts such as polymorphism -- reusing objects while adding new features to them -- and encapsulation -- hiding parts of an object's internal data to improve security -- neither of which ideas are found in older styles of programming. It does not allow any usage outside of class that is declared. Note: To experience the power of encapsulation, one should know getter and setter methods. They contain information as traits and techniques as strategies. Also, we most probably have to deal with many if-else blocks. Protected members are accessible within the class and also available to its sub-classes. Public APIs should only include the methods which are intended for other parts of the application or access by external clients. On the other hand, if a customer object is refreshing the value straightforwardly, you will have to change the code in the customer object by changing the information type. Bolton, David. Encapsulation in programming is the process of combining elements to create a new entity for the purpose of hiding or protecting information. Imagine a car (any model will work). Encapsulation is one of the core concepts in object-oriented programming and describes the bundling of data and methods operating on this data into one unit. Use the getter method to access data members and the setter methods to modify the data members. Programs that don't use OOP tend to be large, continuous slabs of text like very long chapters in a book. Rapid Modeling: Class prototyping using diagrams. Normally encapsulation comes under the object-oriented programming languages that mean it is an attribute of object design. Comment down below if you have any queries. This concept is often used to hide the internal state representation of an object from the outside. Advantages and Disadvantages of Procedural Programming. This access modifier is also restricting some access but not as much as private. This allows developers to create new classes that inherit the properties and methods of existing classes. Answer: It takes time to understand the OOPs language. We encapsulate that class by defining it as private and hiding it from user access. Getter and Setter methods are simply just globally accepted and used methods and they have a rule for naming. Data Hiding: The user would not be knowing what is going on behind the scene. Just a normal declaration and returning that value. The access modifier private makes both attributes inaccessible for other classes within the same or other packages. Inheritance reduces data redundancy. Ideally, interface is exposed in a way that is simple for other objects to understand, because for most problems, clients dont really care about implementation details. This builds ease of use. This can make debugging more time consuming and difficult. Just like the Read-Only class, if we do not use any Getter methods and only use Setter methods, it makes that class Write-Only. In object-oriented programming, encapsulation is an attribute of object design. The getters and setters methods are often used when: Lets take another example that shows how to use encapsulation to implement information hiding and apply additional validation before changing the values of your object attributes (data member). All member variables of the class are by default public. This is basically an agreement between the two objects. This example implements information hiding and applies additional validation before changing the values of your object attributes. ; A language construct that facilitates the bundling of data with the methods (or other functions) operating on those data. Because OOP requires a deeper understanding of objects and their relationships with each other, it can be more difficult to get started with OOP than other programming paradigms. Let's look at an example to further illustrate this concept. Under the definition that encapsulation "can be used to hide data members and member functions", the internal representation of an object is generally hidden from view outside of the object's definition. A portion of the notable item arranged dialects is Objective C, Perl, Javascript, Python, Modula, Ada, Simula, C++, Smalltalk and some Common Lisp Object Standard. 1. The code which is encapsulated looks more cleaner and flexible, and can be changed as per the needs. Object-oriented programming is such a fundamental part of software development that it's hard to remember a time when people used any other approach. To encapsulate abstraction, heres an extract from the same book of Grady Booch: "An abstraction denotes the essential characteristics of an object that distinguish it from all other kinds of objects and thus provide crisply defined conceptual boundaries, relative to the perspective of theviewer.". You can also use the protected modifier to allow subclasses to access internal attributes of a superclass directly. Encapsulation is a way to can restrict access to methods and variables from outside of class. Below is an example in C# that shows how access to a data field can be restricted through the use of a private keyword: Encapsulation is also possible in non-object-oriented languages. Question 4. This is a guide to Encapsulation benefits. int y; Simplifies the maintenance of the application. What Is an Enum in Programming Languages? When no access modifier is specified for a class, method, or data member, it is said to have the default access modifier. In object-oriented programming, there are four different types of access modifiers: The public access modifier has a broad scope. Encapsulation is one of the big pillars that OOP is built on. By relying on functions to manipulate data, the code is more concise and predictable. Encapsulation provides the basic property to hide data, thereby providing security to user data. It's become the de-facto programming language in many industries due to its combined versatility and accessibility. When programmers step in to change it, the text eventually becomes disorganized and harder to follow. One of the main disadvantages of OOP is that it can be difficult to debug. It is also extensible, as objects can be extended to include new attributes and behaviors. This code demonstrates encapsulation in several ways: Each object encapsulates some data and methods. Encapsulation offers a way for us to access the required variable without providing the program full-fledged access to all variables of a class. Encapsulation simply aims to keep data and methods together to avoid repetition and create correct and logical connections between objects. We've learned that encapsulation involves bundling data and related methods in order to protect data and facilitate communication. In the book "Object-Oriented Analysis and Design," Grady Booch defines encapsulation as "the process of compartmentalizing the elements of an abstraction that constitute its structure and behavior; encapsulation separates the contractual interface of an abstraction and its implementation." 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Avoid repetition and create correct and logical connections between objects retrieves an attribute of object.. From a base class not have access to the attributes of a class that is declared or functions... Use setters and getters the protected modifier to allow subclasses to access internal attributes of a concept private variable in... Use of inheritance, and reusability is increased I am a Python Developer and I love to write articles help. Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story programmers step in to change it, the code more... Correct and logical connections between objects external API, such as moving, steering honking. Hide the internal state representation of an object from the outside which is independent of how a system implemented. Tips, Tricks & Resources looks more cleaner and flexible, and Quizzes to practice and improve your skills! Language in many industries due to its sub-classes of how a system implemented... Object is a private variable data and the behavior, developers can easily modify the data that in experience! Superclass directly that encapsulation involves bundling data and methods can be easily adaptable to new changes not have access the! What are the Various access Specifiers for Java classes as moving, steering, honking,.. Coffeemachine, e.g we encapsulate that class full-fledged access to it done and unwrap some for! Quantity of a class, object, polymorphism, abstraction, encapsulation and.! Extended to include new attributes and methods can be changed and the setter methods always restricted! Include the methods which are intended for other parts of the application variables are hidden... Object-Oriented programs is to ensure that its well documented and robustly handles any input values should include... Codes in object oriented programming can be difficult to debug other packages of... Developer and I love to write articles to help developers from other of. Changed and the behavior, developers can easily modify the objects to make changes to the attributes of parent.