Refactoring 009 — Protect Public Attributes

Forget about data structures, DTOs, POJOs, and anemic objects.

Forget about data structures, DTOs, POJOs, and anemic objects.

TL;DR: Avoid external manipulation

Problems Addressed

• Encapsulation Violation

• Anemic Models

Related Code Smells

Code Smell 01 — Anemic Models
Your objects are a bunch of public attributes without behavior.blog.devgenius.io

Code Smell 40 — DTOs
DTOs are widely used and the ‘solve’ real problems, do they?blog.devgenius.io

Steps

1. Change the visibility of your attributes from public to private.

Sample Code

Before

public class Song {
   String artistName;
   String AlbumName;
}

After

public class Song {
   // 1- Change the visibility of your attributes from public to private
   private String artistName;
   private String AlbumName;

  // We cannot access attributes until we add methods
}

Type

[X] Semi-Automatic

We can change the visibility with an IDE or text editor.

Safety

This is not a safe refactor.

Existing dependencies may break.

Why code is better?

We can change encapsulated code easily.

The code is not repeated.

Limitations

Some languages don’t have visibility options.

Tags

• Anemic

Related Refactorings

Refactoring 001 — Remove Setters
Setters violate immutability and add accidental couplingblog.devgenius.io

Credits

Image by Couleur on Pixabay

This article is part of the Refactoring Series.

How to Improve your Code With easy Refactorings
Refactorings are amazing to grow and improve our codemcsee.medium.com