Chapter 8, Problem 11RE

Program Plan Intro

Accessor:

• The accessoris a method that does not changes the state of an object. The accessor method tells the object to compute something without changing its state.
• For example,

  //calling the accessor method

  double height = rectangle.getHeight();

• In the above example, the object “rectangle” tells the method “getHeight()” to find the height. So, it does not change the state of the value. Because the method only finds the value and it save to the variable “height”.
• Here, the method “getHeight()” is a accessor.

Mutator:

• The mutator is a method that change the object’s state. That is mutator modifies the object by which it is called.
• For example,

//calling the mutator method

rectangle.setHeight(1000);

• In the above example, the method “setHeight()” is a mutator because it initializes some values to the members of the object “rectangle”and thus changes the state of the object.