Encapsulation in Java

       Encapsulation is the concept of hiding/restricting data to access from outside . Encapsulation provides the attribute access control. The access control can be achieved through access specifiers.

There are 4 access specifiers in Java
1)public
2)private
3)protected
4)default

Public:
   If you use public as access specifier then you can access those members of a class from outside the class/package also.

Private:
     If you use private access specifier then you cannot access those members of a class outside the class . it will be accessible only within that scope.
We will discuss later about the scope of an instance.

Protected :
     The protected access specifier behaves as private to outside but it will allow to access the members in inherited classes .

We will discuss more about protected with example in the section Inheritance.

default:  
      If you declare any members of a class without any access specifier i.e public,private,protected then it will consider the member as default . It is a private access specifier will allow to access the members of the class only inside that class.
Note: default is not a keyword to specify the access specifier. If you not mention the access specifier then it will be considered as default.

Example:
To copy the code you can select the code and ctrl+C
class GetSetName{ String name;//variable declaration and acccess specifier is default public int age;//it is public access specifier private String place="Pune"; //as this is private you cannot access directly in the class ClassExample void GetName()//method declaration {System.out.println("Name is "+name); } void SetName(String a){ name=a; System.out.println("Varible name is default"); } } public class ClassExample { public static void main(String[] args) { GetSetName your_name=new GetSetName();//Creating the object of the class GetSetName your_name.SetName("RG Hegde");//calling the method SetName to set your name your_name.GetName();//calling the method GetName to display your name your_name.age=20; System.out.println("age variable is public "+your_name.age); // System.out.println("age variable is public "+your_name.place); //this will display the error message } }

Output :
with out private variable access outside the class

 Error if you try to access private variable in another class