Encapsulation

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Published Oct 10, 2021Updated Dec 21, 2022
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Encapsulation is a way of organizing data members (attributes) and function members (methods) by wrapping them together in a single class. By bundling them together in a single unit, the code is cleaner, more readable, and more maintainable.

class Example {
  // Some attributes
  // Some methods
}

Here’s a Rectangle class with length and width attributes and a .Area() method:

class Rectangle {
public:
int length;
int width;
int Area() {
return length * width;
}
};

Data Hiding

Encapsulation led to the important OOP concept of data hiding or abstraction.

Access specifiers are C++ keywords that determine the scope of class components:

  • public: Public class members are accessible from anywhere in the program.
  • private: Private class members are only accessible from inside the class.

Data hiding is achieved by declaring class attributes as private:

#include <iostream>
class Encapsulation {
private:
// Data hidden from outside world
int num;
public:
// Function to set value of num
void setNum(int x) {
num = x;
}
// Function to return value of num
int getNum() {
return num;
}
};
int main() {
Encapsulation obj;
obj.setNum(10);
std::cout << obj.getNum() << "\n"; // Output: 10
return 0;
}

In the example above, the num attribute and .setNum() and .getNum() methods are wrapped together into one class called Encapsulation.

  • num can only be accessed by either the .setNum() or .getNum() method.
  • .setNum() is used to set the value of num.
  • .getNum() is used to return the value of num.

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