Java Reference
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which are usually public. Making the fields private has two advantages:
1. We can change the implementation of the class without requiring the user
to make changes. For example, suppose we decide to maintain the name
of an employee in two fields, the employee's last name and first name,
but still present the full name as a String to the user. We can do this by
changing the fields and then changing the methods appropriately. The
user would not know the difference.
2. We have control over how the field is used. For example, we can provide
only the ability to read or get the value of the field, but not to change it.
In general, it is the behavior of a class —as presented by its public meth-
ods— that is most important. Who cares how names and salaries are stored in
fields? That is not important to a user of the class. What is important is how they
can be obtained and how the salaries can be changed.
Later, we will see situations in which it makes sense to make fields public.
Also, a method should be private if it is used only within the class and the user
does not need to know of its existence.
Style Note
13.1, 13.1.2
method names
Getter and setter methods
Access to the value of a private field can be granted using a getter method ,
which is a method that simply returns its value. Examples of getter methods in
class Employee are methods getName , getStart , and getCompensation .
A good naming convention for a getter method is the name of the field, cap-
italized and preceded by “ get ”. We used this convention for two getter methods.
We did not use it for field salary because of the way method getCompensation
is used later in Chap. 4. The term getSalary will be too narrow for its use.
In the same way, we write a setter method for a field, in order to change its
value. Examples of setter methods in Employee are setName and setStart . The
parameter of the method contains the value that is to be stored in the field.
Here is a good convention for naming a setter method: use the name of the
field, capitalized and preceded by “ set ”.
3.1.2
The inside-out rule
Keyword this used in a method refers to the instance in which the method
appears; to reference a component named c (say) of that instance, we use the
notation this .c . In Chap. 1, we made extensive use of keyword this when
referring to components of the class within the class. For example, in Chap. 1,
we would have written method toString of class Employee like this:
/** = a representation of this instance */
public String toString()
{ return this .getName() + ", this .year " + this .getStart(); }
However, most programming languages, including Java, use a general
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