What is data encapsulation?
Data encapsulation is a fundamental OOP concept by which the data and the logic (a function) that uses/ manipulates it are bound together into objects.
How is data encapsulation useful?
Let us consider a problem which data encapsulation addresses. Consider 'C' language which is a sub set of 'C++' and does not support OOP/ data encapsulation. The C standard library provides the below strtok function which tokenizes the string "str" into sub strings separated by the delimiter "delim".
The disadvantage of this function is that it cannot tokenize two strings simultaneously. This is because the tokenization requires multiple calls and the subsequent calls are dependent on the previous call. Also the corresponding delimiters for the two stings must be mapped manually for every call.
This link demonstrates the above problem. First token of str1 is printed and then the first token of str2. The next call tokenizes str2 and not str1 and prints the second token for str2.
So, how is data encapsulation helpful?
C++ is built on OOP paradigm where the complete functionality of a software is composed of objects with logically related sub functionalities. The objects consist of data and functions - data encapsulation.
This link demonstrates how the above problem is not seen in C++. The two strings are encapsulated into two different objects and the state of tokenization for each string is maintained separately in different objects. The delimiters are also bound to the tokenizers of each string.
This is one example of how data encapsulation or OOP is helpful.
The STL (C++ Standard Template Library) leverages this OOP concept to provide an enormous set of algorithms and containers.
Data encapsulation is a fundamental OOP concept by which the data and the logic (a function) that uses/ manipulates it are bound together into objects.
How is data encapsulation useful?
Let us consider a problem which data encapsulation addresses. Consider 'C' language which is a sub set of 'C++' and does not support OOP/ data encapsulation. The C standard library provides the below strtok function which tokenizes the string "str" into sub strings separated by the delimiter "delim".
char *strtok(char *str, const char *delim)
The disadvantage of this function is that it cannot tokenize two strings simultaneously. This is because the tokenization requires multiple calls and the subsequent calls are dependent on the previous call. Also the corresponding delimiters for the two stings must be mapped manually for every call.
This link demonstrates the above problem. First token of str1 is printed and then the first token of str2. The next call tokenizes str2 and not str1 and prints the second token for str2.
So, how is data encapsulation helpful?
C++ is built on OOP paradigm where the complete functionality of a software is composed of objects with logically related sub functionalities. The objects consist of data and functions - data encapsulation.
This link demonstrates how the above problem is not seen in C++. The two strings are encapsulated into two different objects and the state of tokenization for each string is maintained separately in different objects. The delimiters are also bound to the tokenizers of each string.
This is one example of how data encapsulation or OOP is helpful.
The STL (C++ Standard Template Library) leverages this OOP concept to provide an enormous set of algorithms and containers.
