Skip to main content

Abstraction vs Encapsulation

"You do abstraction when deciding what to implement. You do encapsulation when hiding something that you have implemented."

Abstraction refers to the ability to make a class abstract in OOP. An abstract class is one that cannot be instantiated. All other functionality of the class still exists, and its fields, methods, and constructors are all accessed in the same manner. You just cannot create an instance of the abstract class.

If a class is abstract and cannot be instantiated, the class does not have much use unless it is subclass. This is typically how abstract classes come about during the design phase. A parent class contains the common functionality of a collection of child classes, but the parent class itself is too abstract to be used on its own.

Encapsulation is one of the four fundamental OOP concepts. The other three are inheritance, polymorphism, and abstraction.

Encapsulation is the technique of making the fields in a class private and providing access to the fields via public methods. If a field is declared private, it cannot be accessed by anyone outside the class, thereby hiding the fields within the class. For this reason, encapsulation is also referred to as data hiding.

Encapsulation can be described as a protective barrier that prevents the code and data being randomly accessed by other code defined outside the class. Access to the data and code is tightly controlled by an interface.

The main benefit of encapsulation is the ability to modify our implemented code without breaking the code of others who use our code. With this feature Encapsulation gives maintainability, flexibility and extensibility to our code.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Laravel 6.x with React and react-router

This will get you started on getting your first React/Laravel application deployed to your server. We'll cover everything from installation to deployment. Start by reading the installation instructions on  https://laravel.com/docs/6.x#installing-laravel . We'll cover those details below. Setting Up Laravel Check that you have the latest version of PHP installed on your computer.  It must be >= 7.2.0. Open terminal to get the Laravel installation tool. Type in composer global require laravel/installer Type in laravel to verify installation. Navigate to a directory on your computer where you want to install your project on your terminal. Run the following command: laravel new project_name (replace project_name with your project name). Once complete, cd into your new project. Type the following command: php artisan serve. You'll get a message like the following if it's running successfully: Laravel development server started: http://127.0.0.1:8000 ...

Creating your own ArrayList in Java

Wanted to show that certain data structures in Java can be created by you. In this example, we'll go ahead and create an ArrayList data structure that has some of the methods that the built in ArrayList class has. We'll create 2 constructors: The default constructor that creates an ArrayList with a default size of 10. Constructor that allows an initial size to be passed to the array. We'll also create a number of methods: void add(Object x);  A method that allows you to place an Object at the end of the ArrayList. void add(int index, Object x);  A method that allows you to place a value at a given location. Object get(int index):  Allows you to retrieve a value of the arrayList array from a given location. int size();  Allows you to get the number of elements currently in the Arraylist. boolean isEmpty();  Tests to see if the Arraylist is empty. boolean isIn(Object x);  A method that sees if a particular object exist in the arrayList. int ...

Programming Language Concepts Test Questions/Answers

One of the easiest methods that I use to learn new topics is by creating notes on the subject and then by turning those notes into questions and answers. Remembering answers to questions just seems more natural. I was able to memorize 323 questions and answers in a matter of a couple of days. I wanted to start doing this for some topics that I find pretty interesting. To begin, here are some questions and answers to Programming Language Concepts (PLC). I'm reading your mind right now and the answer is yes, there will be more. 1. Name 3 reasons for studying PLC. - Better understanding of current programming languages - Advancement of computing - Increased capability to express ideas - Increased capability to learn new programming language. - Better understanding of which programming language to choose.  2. Name the 5 programming domains and languages best suited for each. - Scientific (Fortran, ALGOL 60) - Business (COBOL) - AI (Lisp, Scheme, Prolog) - Web (PHP, ...