Question

Should getters just return the object:

public MyObject getMyObject() {
    return myObject;
}

Or should it make a copy of the object it’s returning and return the copy?

public MyObject getMyObject() {
    MyObject tempObject;
    // call setters to set its attributes
    return tempObject;
}

High school “CS” courses here aren’t detailed enough. My teacher never talked about classes, objects, and references.

Answer 1

This depends on what you’re trying to do.

In general, though, you just want a reference to the object, and you use your first code example. For example, Swing components have a method called getTopLevelAncestor(). It’s completely useless to have a copy of the parent component–what’s wanted is a reference to the child’s actual parent.

Returning a copy is not standard, and should only be used under very specific (and well-documented) circumstances. Other people using your code will not expect to get copies of objects.