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Stephanie Walker
4,158 PointsUnderstanding Java getCharacterName
Hey guys,
I'm trying to make sure I understand why I am doing everything in the videos rather than just copying Craig, so I'm writing notes along side each code block. In the code below we have;
public PezDispenser (String characterName) {
mCharacterName = characterName;
mPezCount = 0;
}
which I think means we have created a variable so we can add the name of the character without exposing the member variable.
But then further down the code we have
public String getCharacterName() {
return mCharacterName;
}
And I'm not really sure why we have added this, it feels like we are repeating ourselves? Why can't we call characterName instead of getCharacterName?
I think I've confused myself a bit and got in a tangle!
2 Answers
Phil Weber
43 PointsHi, Stephanie: mCharacterName is a private variable in the PezDispenser class; it cannot be accessed outside the class. In order to make its value visible to users of PezDispenser, you have created a getter -- getCharacterName -- which does nothing but return the value of mCharacterName.
If you want users of PezDispenser to be able to change the value of mCharacterName, you could add a setter -- setCharacterName -- to which a user would pass a new value; inside the setter, you could perform any appropriate validation, then set mCharacterName to the new value.
Hope that helps!
Stephanie Walker
4,158 PointsHi Phil, thats brill thanks for the reply. It all makes sense now! I just confused myself big time haha