What is the significance of public, private and public members of a class?
Class of what?
Why is the subject title Java?
Because that's the course subject. Java Programming
The significance of public, private, and protected members in a class lies in the concept of encapsulation in object-oriented programming.
To understand the significance, let's first define what each member specifier means:
1. Public members: Public members of a class are accessible from anywhere in the program. They can be accessed and modified by other classes, objects, or functions. These members define the interface of the class, as they are used to interact with the class from external code.
2. Private members: Private members of a class are only accessible from within the same class. They cannot be accessed or modified directly by external code. They encapsulate the internal implementation details of the class, providing data hiding and encapsulation.
3. Protected members: Protected members are similar to private members, but they can be accessed by derived classes (subclasses) as well. They allow the derived classes to inherit and access the protected members of their base class.
Now, let's discuss the significance of these member specifiers:
1. Encapsulation: Encapsulation is the idea of bundling data (instance variables) and the methods (member functions) that operate on that data together in a class. By using private and protected members, you can hide the internal details of how a class works and only expose the necessary functionality through public members. This protects the integrity of the object's state and prevents unauthorized access or modifications.
2. Data hiding: Private members restrict the access to the internal state and implementation details of a class. This helps in maintaining data integrity and avoids accidental misuse or manipulation of class members by external code.
3. Abstraction: By defining a public interface through public members, you provide a clear and simplified way for other code to interact with your class. This promotes code reusability, modularity, and helps in building more maintainable and scalable software systems.
4. Inheritance: Protected members allow derived classes to access the inherited members of the base class. This enables code reuse and facilitates the creation of specialized classes that extend the functionality of the base class.
To summarize, public, private, and protected members in a class are significant in providing encapsulation, data hiding, abstraction, and supporting the concept of inheritance in object-oriented programming.