Bean properties vs other Bean methods

[leo donahue]

Normally, when you bind a value to a component, you create a property in the bean and provide get/set methods for that property.

ex:

    private String s;

    public String getS() {
        return s;
    }

    public void setS(String s) {
        this.s = s;
    }

What is it called when you create a random method with a "get" naming convention and use that as the value binding to a component? Is there a word for that?

ex:

    public String getSomeRandomMethod(){
        return "some literal string or computed String value";
    }

[Tim Holloway]

Yes. It's called a "property 'get' method."

Properties aren't the internal objects, they're what external accessors see. And if an external accessor sees a "get" method, as far as it's concerned, that's a property fetch.

You can provide synthetic properties via internal computations, string operations, database fetches, or whatever and there will be no way for the external accessor code to know that the property value isn't actually a physical field within the target object.

Of course, in JSF, there are a few limitations on this. Property methods have to return the same value every time they're read within the request phases of the JSF lifecycle (I believe the term is "idempotent"). They shouldn't have "side effects", and for performance reasons, they shouldn't take long to execute.

Anything beyond that is fair game.