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Ask HN: What is encapsulation in Python?

• bjw181 10y ago
  What is encapsulation in any language? Put simply, we encapsulate mainly to prevent mistakingly altering data. For example, private methods and variables. Class Foo: def __init__(self): self.__im_private() def bar(self): print('baz') def __im_private(self): print('back off, I can only be called by the class')
  • xcoding 10y ago
    Could you elaborate?
    • probinso 10y ago
      Encapsulation in object oriented programming is a term we use to describe joining of conceptual topics. A class generally models a conceptual topic, the data and methods on the class allow a clean interface to operations from that topic. This extends the idea that 'the existence of a public method acts a documentation for what you can do with a object`. The existence of private methods and data are only to the benefit of the developer of the class. Python's standards for encapsulation are a little different, because you cannot hide methods and data the same way you would with other languages. This is made apparent with public interfaces to private methods like in .__iter__(self): methods.