By putting functionality into a function, does that alone constitute an example of encapsulation or do you need to use objects to have encapsulation?
I’m trying to understand the concept of encapsulation. What I thought was if I go from something like this:
n = n + 1
which is executed out in the wild as part of a big body of code and then I take that, and put it in a function such as this one, then I have encapsulated that addition logic in a method:
addOne(n) n = n + 1 return n Or is it more the case that it is only encapsulation if I am hiding the details of addOne from the outside world – like if it is an object method and I use an access modifier of private/protected?
Perhaps you are confusing abstraction with encapsulation, which is understood in the broader context of object orientation.
Encapsulation properly includes all three of the following:
Abstraction is only one component of encapsulation. In your example you have abstracted the adding functionality from the main body of code in which it once resided. You do this by identifying some commonality in the code – recognizing a concept (addition) over a specific case (adding the number one to the variable n). Because of this ability, abstraction makes an encapsulated component – a method or an object – reusable.
Equally important to the notion of encapsulation is the idea of implementation hiding. This is why encapsulation is discussed in the arena of object orientation. Implementation hiding protects an object from its users and vice versa. In OO, you do this by presenting an interface of public methods to the users of your object, while the implementation of the object takes place inside private methods.
This serves two benefits. First, by limiting access to your object, you avoid a situation where users of the object can leave the object in an invalid state. Second, from the user’s perspective, when they use your object they are only loosely coupled to it – if you change your implementation later on, they are not impacted.
Finally, division of responsility – in the broader context of an OO design – is something that must be considered to address encapsulation properly. It’s no use encapsulating a random collection of functions – responsibility needs to be cleanly and logically defined so that there is as little overlap or ambiguity as possible. For example, if we have a Toilet object we will want to wall off its domain of responsibilities from our Kitchen object.
In a limited sense, though, you are correct that a function, let’s say, ‘modularizes’ some functionality by abstracting it. But, as I’ve said, ‘encapsulation’ as a term is understood in the broader context of object orientation to apply to a form of modularization that meets the three criteria listed above.