Page 1 of 1

About Question com.enthuware.jfcja.v8.2.414 :

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:25 am
by nick12345
Hello,

can you please explain what does this sentence mean?
It helps make sure that clients have no accidental dependence on the choice of representation
thank you :)

Re: About Question com.enthuware.jfcja.v8.2.414 :

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:04 am
by admin
Let me explain it with an example. Let's say you have a ExamResult class and it has a method passed(), which returns a true or false depending on whether the user has passed the exam or not. Something like this:

Code: Select all

class ExamResult{
   public int marksScored;
   public  boolean passed(){
      return marksScored>50; //pass if marksScored is >50. 
   }
}
In the above code, the abstraction is passed/failed and you are representing that abstraction through the marksScored variable. However,
observe that marksScored is public. Therefore, any user of this class can start relying on the marksScored field, because it is accessible to all, instead of passed() method.
Later on, you decide to use Grades (A B C D and F) instead of marks as the choice of representation and want to change passed() method code to: return !'F'.equals(grade)?

But other user's code will now fail to compile because they are depending on the marksScored field to be present in the ExamResult class. They were not really supposed to use this field. They should have used the passed() method. But you didn't make that field private, so, they found it and used it anyway. Had you made marksScored as private (i.e. made the class encapsulated), they would not have used this field and their logic based on passed() method would still work even if you change marksScored to grade.

Thus encapsulating a class properly prevents this breakage from happening.

Re: About Question com.enthuware.jfcja.v8.2.414 :

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 1:10 pm
by nick12345
Thank you very much for your great explanation :)

Re: About Question com.enthuware.jfcja.v8.2.414 :

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:33 am
by 1z0811808
Also the method returns a value so the VALUE can be changed from marksScored which is int to Grade(A,B,C,F) which is 'char'.