Self Encapsulate Field

Access a field through getters and setters even inside the class.

“You are accessing a field directly, but the coupling to the field is becoming awkward.”

Indirect access to internal data.

graph LR
    A[Direct Access] -->|Refactoring| B[Getter/Setter]

When to apply (Smells)

  • Low flexibility: You want to override the field access in a subclass.
  • Lazy Loading: You need to calculate the value on the fly.

Motivation

  • De-coupling: Subclasses can override how data is retrieved.

Mechanics (Steps)

  1. Create a getter (and setter) for the field.
  2. Find all direct accesses to the field.
  3. Replace them with the getter/setter.

Explanation

Problem

You access a field directly, but you need to add logic (like validation or lazy loading) to that access.

Solution

Wrap the field in a getter and setter and use them everywhere.

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
  • Flexibility (can override in subclasses)
    		•
  • Verbose
    		•

    Code example

    Typescript

    Before

    After

    PHP

    Before

    After