Question

As described in
Why does java.awt.Point provide methods to set and get doubles but store x and y as int's? the Java class java.awt.Point does not have a get method that returns an int. However, you can access x and y directly, which are both int types.

With that said, which is the lesser of the 2 evils?

Point location = this.getLocation();
int locX = (int)location.getX();
int locY = (int)location.getY();

or

Point location = this.getLocation();
int locX = location.x;
int locY = location.y;

I try to keep the standard practice of using getters (accessor methods) when possible, but in this scenario it requires a cast. I can avoid the cast, but I must access the fields x and y directly. Assuming that internally getX and getY are simply casting the int to a double and then I’m casting it back to an int, it feels wrong.

Answer 1

The direct access method is slightly more efficient and looks nicer. It is technically bad practice to avoid the get/set methods if they exist, but in this case I think you should make an exception.