what are setters and getters for

Setters and getters are used to provide access to a private variable. Could someone please explain why not just access the variable directly like sampleObject.attribute = "Value" or String attributeValue = sampleObject.attribute? What are the pitfalls of this direct access approach

A couple of things (at least)

1) encapsulation. The thing you are setting/getting may be complex - eg. You might create a getter that formats a Date object into a String for example.

2) By following a convention they enable tools to use reflection to manipulate them without having to know field names before hand. BeanUtils gives some examples.

Hey Cruz,

More on getter setters could help you.

Ananth Chellathurai

Hi Ananth,

I've actually read the article but it's anti-"setter getter". What I'm trying to do is to solicit pro-"setter getter" opinions.

Hi Daniel,

Example #1: These cases are in my opinion quite rare and in any case does not necessitate having setters and getters for all the other fields

Example #2: I think these tools built on the fact that there are setters and getters so they adjusted to the situation they found. If this is not the case, I do believe they still would have found to work their way around