why getters and setters

[languid acorn]

Making getters and setters to a private variable isnt the same as making it public?

[late loom]

<@&987246399047479336> please have a look, thanks.

[late loom]

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[plucky yoke]

Not quite - by doing so we have more control over what type of access occurs. We can add logic into the getters and setters (or not have then at all) that controls what happens when. Imagine a setter where there is a condition like:

public void setVariable(int variable) {
  if (variable > 10) {
    System.out.println("Too big!");
    return;
  }
  this.variable = variable;
}

A very simple example but now we can control what occurs to the variable when. If the value was accessed just as the variable itself:

myObject.variable = 11;

We have lost all control over how access to the object proceeds

We can also control things in the getter such as "Is this user authenticated?" (This probably won't happen in a getter itself and some other class would be called first but the idea remains the same)

We also might only want people to read a value versus setting it: so only a getter. Again, with a public/global variable we lose that control.

[sleek grove]

Plus you prevent yourself from overwriting values