What is encapsulation and how does it promote data hiding in C#?
What is encapsulation and how does it promote data hiding in C#?
527
02-Jul-2023
Aryan Kumar
04-Jul-2023Sure. In C#, encapsulation is a principle of object-oriented programming that binds together the data and the functions that operate on that data, and keeps both safe from outside interference. This means that the data and the functions that operate on it are kept together in a single unit, known as a class.
Encapsulation is achieved using access modifiers. Access modifiers are keywords that are used to control the visibility of class members. There are four access modifiers in C#:
By using access modifiers, you can control which members of a class are accessible to other classes. This can be used to promote data hiding, which is the principle of keeping data safe from outside interference.
For example, the following code defines a class
Personwith a private fieldnameand a public propertyFullNamethat gets and sets the value of thenamefield.C#
The
namefield is private, which means that it is only accessible from within thePersonclass. TheFullNameproperty is public, which means that it is accessible from anywhere in the program.This means that the value of the
namefield can only be changed by code that is inside thePersonclass. This promotes data hiding because it prevents other classes from changing the value of thenamefield without the permission of thePersonclass.Encapsulation is a powerful feature that can be used to improve the security and readability of your code. It can also be used to promote code reuse by hiding the implementation details of a class from other classes.