How do Access Modifiers help in achieving encapsulation in a program?
Access modifiers play a crucial role in achieving encapsulation by controlling the visibility and accessibility of class members. Encapsulation is the process of bundling data (variables) and methods that operate on the data within a single unit, i.e., a class. This helps to protect the internal state of an object from being accessed or modified directly by external entities.
There are four access modifiers: public, private, protected, and default (no keyword). By using these modifiers, we can define the scope and boundaries for member variables and methods, ensuring that they are only accessible where necessary.
For instance, marking a variable as private restricts its access to the same class, preventing any unauthorized modifications. Similarly, protected allows access within the same package and subclasses, while public grants access everywhere. Default access limits visibility to the same package.
By carefully selecting appropriate access modifiers, we can hide implementation details, expose only required functionalities, and maintain a clean interface for other classes to interact with. This promotes modularity, maintainability, and reusability in our code.
