Introduction to Programming

Object (instance) members

A non-static class member is also called an instance variable in case of the field or an instance method in case of a method. It can be accessed only via reference to the object followed by a dot "." We have seen several such examples already.

In line with the long-established tradition, the fields of an object are usually declared private. If necessary, the methods set() and/or get() are provided to access such private values. They are often called setters and getters as they set and get values of private fields. Here is an example:

public class MyClass {  private int field1;  private String field2;  public void setField1(String val){    this.field1 = val;  }  public String getField1(){    return this.field1;  } public void ...