Which statement best describes encapsulation?
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A. B. C. D.A.
Encapsulation is one of the fundamental principles of object-oriented programming (OOP), which refers to the idea of bundling data and methods that operate on that data within a single unit or object, and hiding the internal details of the object from the outside world. Encapsulation provides several benefits, including improved security, maintainability, and flexibility of code.
The statement that best describes encapsulation is A. Encapsulation ensures that classes can be designed so that only certain fields and methods of an object are accessible from other objects. This means that an object's internal state, i.e., its fields or properties, can only be accessed or modified through the object's public methods.
Encapsulation is achieved by using access modifiers such as private, public, and protected, which determine the level of visibility of a class member (field or method) outside of the class. For example, private members can only be accessed within the same class, while public members can be accessed from anywhere.
Encapsulation also enables the creation of data abstraction, which means that the internal representation of an object can be hidden from the outside world, and only the relevant data and behavior are exposed to the user. This improves the overall security of the program by preventing unauthorized access to the object's internal state.
In contrast, options B, C, and D do not describe encapsulation accurately. Option B is incorrect because inheritance is a separate OOP principle that allows a subclass to inherit the properties and methods of its parent class. Option C is incorrect because abstract classes and methods are used to define a contract that a class must implement, but they do not relate to encapsulation directly. Option D is incorrect because it describes polymorphism, which is the ability of an object to take many forms and behave differently depending on the context in which it is used.
In summary, encapsulation is a powerful OOP principle that promotes information hiding, data abstraction, and secure access to an object's state.