Whats the point of separate Getter and Setter methods in Java? [duplicate]

Question

I'm fairly new to Java -- can someone please give an applicable reasoning for what the Getter and Setter methods's purposes are respectively?

Doesn't it seem redundant to create two different methods in a class to receive data and apply the data? Why aren't they consolidated into one method?

How exactly would you create one method, when there are two different operations: one to fetch data and one to set it? What would you pass in as the argument if you just wanted to fetch the existing value? — Jon Skeet
– Jon Skeet, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 21:25
couldn't you essentially get the data and store it in a single variable and just return the values of that variable? There seems to be a gap in my understanding... can someone please clarify what i'm not understanding? — Ray
– Ray, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 21:26
Then how would you set it? I really can't understand what you're proposing. It would help if you'd give two versions of a class, both with a single int field called value. One version of the class has getValue and setValue methods, and the other is whatever you're proposing. — Jon Skeet
– Jon Skeet, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 21:28
(I don't think this is a duplicate, by the way - the OP isn't talking about encapsulation, but about having one method rather than two...) — Jon Skeet
– Jon Skeet, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 21:29
This is really a Object Oriented Programming Question. Best place to start is Understand Encapsulation. Messages versus Data Members and how they should be managed especially within the contexts of aggregation and inheritance. — myqyl4
– myqyl4, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 21:30

P45 Imminent · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-13 21:26:06Z

0

Not at all. A getter can have significantly relaxed implementation to a corresponding setter: the setter may have different access privileges and can prevalidate any of the input data.

This helps achieve much better program stability.

answered Mar 13, 2014 at 21:26

P45 Imminent

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2 Comments

Ray Over a year ago

Interesting, thanks yogi. Is there any documentation I can look at that explains this logic?

P45 Imminent Over a year ago

Oops. looks like this is a duplicate. Perhaps the other answers can help. Help the old bear here and accept / upvote ;-)

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