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4,497 PointsLogic of "Get" and "Set"
I'm still not 100% clear about when one would ever use 'get' and 'set methods. What's the benefit?
The 'set' method just seems to be the reverse of the 'get' method. Is this because the 'get' method modified the value in the first place? Please clarify what the purpose of the 'get' and 'set' are, the logic behind it, and some benefits for using them?
Thank you.
1 Answer
Hayes McCardell II
643 PointsI come from a Java background, but I hope this will help you. Think about the thing you are accessing as an object. Perhaps we have a car class. The car class (object) has properties, such as topSpeed, gasMileage, color, etc. Getters and setters are the ways in which we are allowed to access those properties.
Now we have an instance of the class, a specific car, a dodgeChallenger.
If you want to check the value car's property, you have to access it. That's where getters come in. Through the getters, we get access to view (read) the properties.
Something like dodgeChallenger.getColor(), or dodgeChallenger.topSpeed()
In order to change (write to) those properties, we use setters.
dodgeChallenger.setColor("Plum Crazy") would be used to replace the current value with the new value "Plum Crazy".
Otherwise, we have no way to tell our object which property we are trying to work with, or what to do with that property.
Gets look at properties, and Sets change them.