Difference between abstraction and encapsulation

Question

What is the precise difference between encapsulation and abstraction

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Encapsulation means-hiding data like using getter and setter etc   Abstraction means- hiding implementation using abstract class and interfaces etc

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One thing  perhaps a fundamental thing that other answers forget to mention is that  encapsulation IS abstraction  Therefore  it is not accurate to contrast the two and look for differences  but rather to look at encapsulation as a form of abstraction

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Abstraction  Abstraction is the process of extracting out the common properties and fields of all existing and foreseen implementations   For example  Car is an abstraction for Sedan  Hatchback  SUV  Coupe  Convertible  Car would have all the properties and fields common to all types of cars   Encapsulation  Encapsulation is the process of hiding unwanted details from the user  This term comes from the Capsule  Just like medicine is hidden from the user inside the capsule  Details of various machines and equipments and devices ranging from Mixers  Bikes  Washing machines  Radio  Television to Airplanes  You don t want all the details of the machine to be visible to user    In programming terms  Let us consider a class Car  In the example below  all that user needs to know is turn the key  turnKey   method   he does not know about the internal functions  User does not need to know about any of the internal functions or about the internal components   In this case  all the private methods are internal functions and private fields like  Piston p1  are internal data which user does not need to know    public class Car       private void startMotor      do something       private void generateVoltage      do something       private void sparkPlugIgnition      do something       private void fuelFlowFromTankToInjector      do something       private void pushPistonsDown                     p1 doAction                   p2 doAction                     do something          private void moveCrankShaft      do something        private Piston p1      private Piston p2       public void turnKey            startMotor            generateVoltage            sparkPlugIgnition            fuelFlowFromTankToInjector            pushPistonsDown            moveCrankShat

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The process of Abstraction and Encapsulation both generate interfaces   An interface generated via encapsulation hides implementation details   An interface generated via abstraction becomes applicable to more data types  compared to before abstraction

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Let s take the example of a stack  It could be implemented using an array or a linked list  But the operations it supports are push and pop   Now abstraction is exposing only the interfaces push and pop  The underlying representation is hidden  is it an array or a linked list   and a well-defined interface is provided  Now how do you ensure that no accidental access is made to the abstracted data  That is where encapsulation comes in   For example  classes in C   use the access specifiers which ensure that accidental access and  modification is prevented  And also  by making the above-mentioned interfaces as public  it ensures that the only way to manipulate the stack is through the well-defined interface  In the process  it has coupled the data and the code that can manipulate it  let s not get the friend functions involved here   That is  the code and data are bonded together or tied or encapsulated

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In short   Abstraction is a technique that helps us identify which specific information is essential  and which information should be hidden   Encapsulation is then the technique for enclosing the information in such a way to hide details and implementation details of an object

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Encapsulation  Is hiding unwanted un-expected propriety implementation details from the actual users of object  e g   List lt string gt  list   new List lt string gt     list Sort       Here  which sorting algorithm is used and hows its  implemented is not useful to the user who wants to perform sort  that s  why its hidden from the user of list       Abstraction  Is a way of providing generalization and hence a common way to work with objects of vast diversity  e g   class Aeroplane   IFlyable  IFuelable  IMachine      Aeroplane s Design says       Aeroplane is a flying object      Aeroplane can be fueled      Aeroplane is a Machine      But the code related to Pilot  or Driver of Aeroplane is not bothered     about Machine or Fuel  Hence     pilot code  IFlyable flyingObj   new Aeroplane    flyingObj Fly       fighter Pilot related code IFlyable flyingObj2   new FighterAeroplane    flyingObj2 Fly       UFO related code  IFlyable ufoObj   new UFO    ufoObj Fly         All the 3 Above codes are genaralized using IFlyable     Interface Abstraction      Fly related code knows how to fly  irrespective of the type of     flying object they are      Similarly  Fuel related code     Fueling an Aeroplane IFuelable fuelableObj   new Aeroplane    fuelableObj FillFuel       Fueling a Car IFuelable fuelableObj2   new Car       class Car   IFuelable     fuelableObj2 FillFuel           Fueling code does not need know what kind of vehicle it is  so far     as it can Fill Fuel

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Abstraction--- Hiding Implementation--at Design---Using Interface Abstract calsses  Encapsulation--Hiding Data --At Development---Using access modifiers public private

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Encapsulation is hiding the implementation details which may or may not be for generic or specialized behavior s    Abstraction is providing a generalization  say  over a set of behaviors     Here s a good read  Abstraction  Encapsulation  and Information Hiding by Edward V  Berard of the Object Agency

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Abstraction is generalised term  i e  Encapsulation is subset of Abstraction       Example 2  The solution architect is the person who creates the high-level abstract technical design of the entire solution  and this design is then handed over to the the development team for implementation      Here  solution architect acts as a abstract and development team acts as a Encapsulation  Example 3   Encapsulation networking  of user data     Courtesy  Abstraction  or modularity      Types enable programmers to think at a higher level than the bit or byte  not bothering with low-level implementation  For example  programmers can begin to think of a string as a set of character values instead of as a mere array of bytes  Higher still  types enable programmers to think about and express interfaces between two of any-sized subsystems  This enables more levels of localization so that the definitions required for interoperability of the subsystems remain consistent when those two subsystems communicate  Source

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abstraction is hiding non useful data from users and encapsulation is bind together data into a capsule  a class   I think encapsulation is way that we achieve abstraction

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These are somewhat fuzzy concepts that are not unique to Computer Science and programming  I would like to offer up some additional thoughts that may help others understand these important concepts     Short Answer  Encapsulation - Hiding and or restricting access to certain parts of a system  while exposing the necessary interfaces   Abstraction - Considering something with certain characteristics removed  apart from concrete realities  specific objects  or actual instances  thereby reducing complexity   The main similarity is that these techniques aim to improve comprehension and utility   The main difference is that abstraction is a means of representing things more simply  often to make the representation more widely applicable   whereas encapsulation is a method of changing the way other things interact with something     Long Answer  Encapsulation  Here s an example of encapsulation that hopefully makes things more clear     Here we have an Arduino Uno  and an Arduino Uno within an enclosure  An enclosure is a great representation of what encapsulation is all about   Encapsulation aims to protect certain components from outside influences and knowledge as well as expose components which other things should interface with  In programming terms  this involves information hiding though access modifiers  which change the extent to which certain variables and or properties can be read and written    But beyond that  encapsulation also aims to provide those external interfaces much more effectively  With our Arduino example  this could include the nice buttons and screen which makes the user s interaction with the device much simpler  They provide the user with simple ways to affect the device s behavior and gain useful information about its operation which would otherwise be much more difficult    In programming  this involves the grouping of various components into a separable construct  such as a function  class  or object  It also includes providing the means of interacting with those constructs  as well as methods for gaining useful information about them   Encapsulation helps programmers in many many additional ways  not least of which is improved code maintainability and testability   Abstraction  Although many other answers here defined abstraction as generalization  I personally think that definition is misguided  I would say that generalization is actually a specific type of abstraction  not the other way around  In other words  all generalizations are abstractions  but all abstractions are not necessarily generalizations   Here s how I like to think of abstraction     Would you say the image there is a tree  Chances are you would  But is it really a tree  Well  of course not  It s a bunch of pixels made to look like something we might call a tree  We could say that it represents an abstraction of a real tree  Notice that several visual details of the tree are omitted  Also  it does not grow  consume water  or produce oxygen  How could it  it s just a bunch of colors on a screen  represented by bytes in your computer memory   And here is the essence of abstraction  It s a way of simplifying things so they are easier to understand  Every idea going through your head is an abstraction of reality  Your mental image of a tree is no more an actual tree than this jpeg is   In programming  we might use this to our advantage by creating a Tree class with methods for simulated growing  water consuming  and oxygen production  Our creation would be something that represents our experience of actual trees  and only includes those elements that we really care about for our particular simulation  We use abstraction as a way of representing our experience of something with bytes and mathematics   Abstract Classes  Abstraction in programming also allows us to consider commonalities between several  concrete  object types  types that actually exist  and define those commonalities within a unique entity  For example  our Tree class may inherit from an abstract class Plant  which has several properties and methods which are applicable to all of our plant-like classes  but removes those that are specific to each type of plant  This can significantly reduce duplication of code  and improves maintainability    The practical difference of an abstract class and plain class is that conceptually there s no  real  instances of the abstract class  It wouldn t make sense to construct a Plant object because that s not specific enough  Every  real  Plant is also a more specific type of Plant   Also  if we want our program to be more realistic  we might want to consider the fact that our Tree class might be too abstract itself  In reality  every Tree is a more specific type of Tree  so we could create classes for those types such as Birch  Maple  etc  which inherit from our  perhaps now abstract  Tree class   JVM  Another good example of abstraction is the Java Virtual Machine  JVM   which provides a virtual or abstract computer for Java code to run on  It essentially takes away all of the platform specific components of a system  and provides an abstract interface of  computer  without regard to any system in particular   The Difference  Encapsulation differs from abstraction in that it doesn t have anything to do with how  real  or  accurate  something is  It doesn t remove components of something to make it simpler or more widely applicable  Rather it may hide certain components to achieve a similar purpose

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In-short  Abstraction use -  Encapsulation   amp    Encapsulation use -  data hiding  OR  data hiding is a subset of Encapsulation and  Encapsulation is a subset of Abstraction  Reference  http   www tonymarston co uk php-mysql abstraction txt

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class Aeroplane   IFlyable  IFuelable  IMachine      Aeroplane s Design says       Aeroplane is a flying object      Aeroplane can be fueled      Aeroplane is a Machine      But the code related to Pilot  or Driver of Aeroplane is not bothered     about Machine or Fuel  Hence     pilot code  IFlyable flyingObj   new Aeroplane    flyingObj Fly       fighter Pilot related code IFlyable flyingObj2   new FighterAeroplane    flyingObj2 Fly       UFO related code  IFlyable ufoObj   new UFO    ufoObj Fly         All the 3 Above codes are genaralized using IFlyable     Interface Abstraction      Fly related code knows how to fly  irrespective of the type of     flying object they are      Similarly  Fuel related code     Fueling an Aeroplane IFuelable fuelableObj   new Aeroplane    fuelableObj FillFuel       Fueling a Car IFuelable fuelableObj2   new Car       class Car   IFuelable     fuelableObj2 FillFuel           Fueling code does not need know what kind of vehicle it is  so far     as it can Fill Fuel

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There are differences between      ABSTRAACTION   and      ENCAPSULATION   1     First difference between Abstraction and Encapsulation is that  Abstraction is implemented in Java using interface and abstract class while Encapsulation is implemented using private  package-private and protected access modifier   2     Data abstraction simply means generalizing something to hide the complex logic that goes underneath where Encapsulation is DATA HIDING    3     Encapsulation is combining related logic data  variables and methods  where as Abstraction is hiding internal implementation details and expose only relevant details to the user  In a way you can Abstraction is achieved by Encapsulation

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Another example   Suppose I created an immutable Rectangle class like this   class Rectangle    public    Rectangle int width  int height    width  width   height  height       int width   const   return width       int height   const   return height       private    int width     int height       Now it s obvious that I ve encapsulated width and height  access is somehow restricted   but I ve not abstracted anything  okay  maybe I ve ignored where the rectangle is located in the coordinates space  but this is a flaw of the example    Good abstraction usually implies good encapsulation   An example of good abstraction is a generic database connection class  Its public interface is database-agnostic  and is very simple  yet allows me to do what I want with the connection  And you see  There s also encapsulation there  because the class must have all the low-level handles and calls inside

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I try to draw a line here between abstraction and encapsulation  according to me Abstraction is more of conceptual thing where as encapsulation is one of the abstraction implementation  Since one can hide data without encapsulation  for instance using private constants or variables  so we can have encapsulation with data hiding but data hiding is not always encapsulation  In below piece of code I try to depict simplest form of these concepts           Abstraction     interface IOperation               int SquareNumber               public class Operation                  Data hiding         private int number           public Operation int  number                        this number    number                        Encapsulation         public int SquareNumber                         return number   number                    In action   IOperation obj   new Operation 2       obj number   lt --- can t access because hidden from world using private access modifier but not encapsulated   obj SquareNumber       cannot access internal logic to calculate square because logic is hidden using encapsulation

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I will try to demonstrate Encapsulation in a simple way   Lets see     The wrapping up of data and functions into a single unit  called class  is known as encapsulation  Encapsulation containing and hiding information about an object  such as internal data structures and code    Encapsulation is -   Hiding Complexity  Binding Data and Function together   Making Complicated Method s Private  Making Instance Variable s Private  Hiding Unnecessary Data and Functions from End User    Encapsulation implements Abstraction   And Abstraction is -    Showing Whats Necessary  Data needs to abstract from End User    Lets see an example-  The below Image shows a GUI of  Customer Details to be ADD-ed into a Database      By looking at the Image we can say that we need a Customer Class   Step - 1  What does my Customer Class needs   i e    2 variables to store Customer Code and Customer Name  1 Function to Add the Customer Code and Customer Name into Database   namespace CustomerContent   public class Customer   public string CustomerCode       public string CustomerName       public void ADD       my DB code will go here     Now only ADD method wont work here alone   Step -2  How will the validation work  ADD Function act   We will need Database Connection code and Validation Code  Extra Methods    public bool Validate           Granular Customer Code and Name     return true     public bool CreateDBObject           DB Connection Code     return true      class Program   static void main String   args    CustomerComponent Customer obj   new CustomerComponent Customer   obj CustomerCode    s001   obj CustomerName    Mac    obj Validate    obj CreateDBObject     obj ADD          Now there is no need of showing the Extra Methods Validate    CreateDBObject    Complicated and Extra method    to the End User End user only needs to see and know about Customer Code  Customer Name and ADD button which will ADD the record   End User doesn t care about HOW it will ADD the Data to Database    Step -3  Private the extra and complicated methods which doesn t involves End User s Interaction   So making those Complicated and Extra method as Private instead Public i e Hiding those methods  and deleting the obj Validate    obj CreateDBObject    from main in class Program we achieve Encapsulation   In other words Simplifying Interface to End User is Encapsulation   So now the code looks like as below -  namespace CustomerContent   public class Customer   public string CustomerCode       public string CustomerName       public void ADD          my DB code will go here    private bool Validate           Granular Customer Code and Name     return true     private bool CreateDBObject           DB Connection Code     return true      class Program   static void main String   args    CustomerComponent Customer obj   new CustomerComponent Customer   obj CustomerCode    s001    obj CustomerName    Mac    obj ADD          Summary    Step -1  What does my Customer Class needs  is Abstraction   Step -3  Step -3  Private the extra and complicated methods which doesn t involves End User s Interaction is Encapsulation   P S  - The code above is hard and fast

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The below paragraph helped me to understand how they differ from each other      Data encapsulation is a mechanism of bundling the data  and the   functions that use them and data abstraction is a mechanism of   exposing only the interfaces and hiding the implementation details   from the user    You can read more here

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encapsulation puts some things in a box and gives you a peephole  this keeps you from mucking with the gears   abstraction flat-out ignores the details that don t matter  like whether the things have gears  ratchets  flywheels  or nuclear cores  they just  go   examples of encapsulation    underpants toolbox wallet handbag capsule frozen carbonite a box  with or without a button on it a burrito  technically  the tortilla around the burrito    examples of abstraction     groups of things  is an abstraction  which we call aggregation   things that contains other things  is an abstraction  which we call composition   container  is another kind of  things that contain other things  abstraction  note that all of the encapsulation examples are kinds of containers  but not all containers exhibit provide encapsulation  A basket  for example  is a container that does not encapsulate its contents

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Abstraction  The idea of presenting something in a simplified   different way  which is either easier to understand and use or more pertinent to the situation   Consider a class that sends an email    it uses abstraction to show itself to you as some kind of messenger boy  so you can call emailSender send mail  recipient   What it actually does - chooses POP3   SMTP  calling servers  MIME translation  etc  is abstracted away  You only see your messenger boy   Encapsulation  The idea of securing and hiding data and methods that are private to an object  It deals more with making something independent and foolproof   Take me  for instance  I encapsulate my heart rate from the rest of the world  Because I don t want anyone else changing that variable  and I don t need anyone else to set it in order for me to function  Its vitally important to me  but you don t need to know what it is  and you probably don t care anyway   Look around you ll find that almost everything you touch is an example of both abstraction and encapsulation  Your phone  for instance presents to you the abstraction of being able to take what you say and say it to someone else - covering up GSM  processor architecture  radio frequencies  and a million other things you don t understand or care to  It also encapsulates certain data from you  like serial numbers  ID numbers  frequencies  etc   It all makes the world a nicer place to live in  D

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Encapsulation is an example of abstraction  The whole point of encapsulation is to abstract what s going on inside the function  to reduce all that complexity to a symbol  the reference or the name of the function   to turn the function into a black box   In programming  the word  abstract  is a command  When a class inherits an abstract class  or an interface   you are being ordered to create an abstraction

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Abstraction   Abstraction means to show What part of functionality   Encapsulation   Encapsulation means to hide the How part of the functionality   Lets take a very simple example       lt summary gt      We have an Employee class having two properties EmployeeName and EmployeeCode      lt  summary gt  public class Employee       public string EmplpyeeName   get  set        public string EmployeeCode   get  set            Add new employee to DB is the main functionality  so are making it public so that we can expose it to external environment        This is ABSTRACTION     public void AddEmployee Employee obj                    Creation of DB connection  and  To check if employee exists  are internal details which we have hide from external environment            You can see that these methods are private  external environment just need  What  part only         CreateDBConnection            CheckIfEmployeeExists                   ENCAPLUSATION using private keyword     private bool CheckIfEmployeeExists                    Here we can validate if the employee already exists         return true                ENCAPLUSATION using private keyword     private void CreateDBConnection                    Create DB connection code           Program class of Console Application  class Program       static void Main string   args                Employee obj   new Employee            obj EmplpyeeName    001           obj EmployeeCode    Raj               We have exposed only what part of the functionality         obj AddEmployee obj

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Abstraction and Encapsulation both are know for data hiding  But there is big difference   Encapsulation  Encapsulation is a process of binding or wrapping the data and the codes that operates on the data into a single unit called Class    Encapsulation solves the problem at implementation level   In class  you can hide data by using private or protected access modifiers   Abstraction  Abstraction is the concept of hiding irrelevant details  In other words make complex system simple by hiding the unnecessary detail from the user    Abstraction solves the problem at design level   You can achieve abstraction by creating interface and abstract class in Java    In ruby you can achieve abstraction by creating modules    Ex  We use  collect  map  reduce  sort     methods of Enumerable module with Array and Hash in ruby

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I Think Encapsulation is a way to implement abstraction  Have a look at the following link   Abstraction and Encapsulation

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Encapsulation require modularity  It requires you to create objects that has the data and the methods to process the data  In this case you can view it as a module   Abstraction provides you a generalized view of your classes

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From this  Difference between Encapsulation and Abstraction in OOPS  Abstraction and Encapsulation are two important Object Oriented Programming  OOPS  concepts  Encapsulation and Abstraction both are interrelated terms    Real Life Difference Between Encapsulation and Abstraction  Encapsulate means to hide  Encapsulation is also called data hiding You can think Encapsulation like a capsule  medicine tablet  which hides medicine inside it  Encapsulation is wrapping  just hiding properties and methods  Encapsulation is used for hide the code and data in a single unit to protect the data from the outside the world  Class is the best example of encapsulation    Abstraction refers to showing only the necessary details to the intended user  As the name suggests  abstraction is the  abstract form of anything   We use abstraction in programming languages to make abstract class  Abstract class represents abstract view of methods and properties of class   Implementation Difference Between Encapsulation and Abstraction   Abstraction is implemented using interface and abstract class while Encapsulation is implemented using private and protected access modifier  OOPS makes use of encapsulation to enforce the integrity of a type  i e  to make sure data is used in an appropriate manner  by preventing programmers from accessing data in a non-intended manner  Through encapsulation  only a predetermined group of functions can access the data  The collective term for datatypes and operations  methods  bundled together with access restrictions  public private  etc   is a class

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Abstraction lets you focus on what the object does instead of how it does it Encapsulation means hiding the internal details or mechanics of how an object does something    Like when you drive a car  you know what the gas pedal does but you may not know the process behind it because it is encapsulated   Let me give an example in C   Suppose you have an integer   int Number   5  string aStrNumber   Number ToString      you can use a method like Number ToString   which returns you characters representation of the number 5  and stores that in a string object  The method tells you what it does instead of how it does it

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Encapsulation is wrapping up complexity in one capsule that is class  amp  hence Encapsulation     While abstraction is the characteristics of an object which differentiates from other object     Abstraction can be achieved by making class abstract having one or more methods abstract  Which is nothing but the characteristic which should be implemented by the class extending it  e g  when you inventing designing a car you define a characteristics like car should have 4 doors  break  steering wheel etc    so anyone uses this design should include this characteristics  Implementation is not the head each of abstraction  It will just define characteristics which should be included   Encapsulation is achieved keeping data and the behaviour in one capsule that is class  amp  by making use of access modifiers like public  private  protected along with inheritance  aggregation or composition  So you only show only required things  that too  only to the extent you want to show  i e  public  protected  friendly  amp  private ka funda       e g  GM decides to use the abstracted design of car above  But they have various products having the same characteristics  amp  doing almost same functionality  So they write a class which extends the above abstract class  It says how gear box should work  how break should work  how steering wheel should work  Then all the products just use this common functionality  They need not know how the gear box works or break works or steering wheal works  Indivisual product can surely have more features like a c or auto lock etc       Both are powerful  but using abstraction require more skills than encapsulation and bigger applications products can not survive with out abstraction

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Abstraction and Encapsulation by using a single generalized example  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  We all use calculator for calculation of complex problems

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Abstraction is a contract for the implementation we are going to do  Implementation may get changed over period of time  The various implementations themselves may or may not be hidden but are Masked behind the Abstraction    Suppose we define all the APIs of a class in an interface then ask the users of our code to depened upon the defined APIs of the interface  We are free to improve or modify the implementation only we must follow the set contract  The users are not coupled with our implementation   We EXPOSE all the NECESSARY Rules  methods  in abstraction  the implementation of the rules are left for the implementor entities  also the implemention is not part of the abstraction  Its just the signature and declaration what makes the abstraction   Encapsulation is simply HIDING the internal details by reducing the acess of the states and behaviors  An encapsulated class may or may not have well defined Abstraction    java util List is an abstraction for java util ArrayList  The internal states of java util ArrayList being marked with non public access modifiers is encapsulation    Edit Suppose a class Container nava implements IContainer   IContainer may declare methods like addElement  removeElements  contains  etc  Here IContainer represents the abstraction for its implementing class  Abstraction is declaring the APIs of the class or a module or a system to the outer world  These APIs become the contract  That system may be or may not be developed yet  The users of the system now can depend on the declared APIs and are sure any system implementing such a contract will always adhere to the APIs declared  they will always provide tge implementation for those APIs  Once we are writing some concrete entity then deciding to hide our internal states is encapsulation

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A mechanism that prevents the data of a particular objects safe from intentional or accidental misuse by external functions is called  data Encapsulation   The act of representing essential features without including the background details or explanations is known as abstraction

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Abstraction  Only necessary information is shown  Let s focus on the example of switching on a computer   The user does not have to know what goes on while the system is still loading  that information is hidden from the user    Let s take another example  that of the ATM   The customer does not need to know how the machine reads the PIN and processes the transaction  all he needs to do is enter the PIN  take the cash and leave   Encapsulation  Deals with hiding the sensitive data of a clas hence privatising part of it  It is a way of keeping some information private to its clients by allowing no access to it from outside

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A lot of good answers are provided above but I am going to present my Java  viewpoint here   Data Encapsulation simply means wrapping and controlling access of logically grouped data in a class  It is generally associated with another keyword - Data Hiding  This is achieved in Java using access modifiers   A simple example would be defining a private variable and giving access to it using getter and setter methods or making a method private as it s only use is withing the class  There is no need for user to know about these methods and variables   Note   It should not be misunderstood that encapsulation is all about data hiding only  When we say encapsulation  emphasis should be on grouping or packaging or bundling related data and behavior together   Data Abstraction on the other hand is concept of generalizing so that the underneath complex logic is not exposed to the user  In Java this is achieved by using interfaces and abstract classes   Example -   Lets say we have an interface Animal and it has a function makeSound    There are two concrete classes Dog and Cat that implement this interface  These concrete classes have separate implementations of makeSound   function  Now lets say we have a animal We get this from some external module   All user knows is that the object that it is receiving is some Animal and it is the users responsibility to print the animal sound  One brute force way is to check the object received to identify it s type  then typecast it to that Animal type and then call makeSound   on it  But a neater way is to abstracts thing out  Use Animal as a polymorphic reference and call makeSound   on it  At runtime depending on what the real Object type is proper function will be invoked    More details here     Complex logic is in the circuit board which is encapsulated in a touchpad and a nice interface buttons  is provided to abstract it out to the user    PS  Above links are to my personal blog

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Information hiding is not strictly required for abstraction or encapsulation  Information might be ignored  but does not have to be hidden   Encapsulation is the ability to treat something as a single thing  even though it may be composed of many complex parts or ideas  For example  I can say that I m sitting in a  chair  rather than referring to the many various parts of that chair each with a specific design and function  all fitting together precisely for the purpose of comfortably holding my butt a few feet away from the floor   Abstraction is enabled by encapsulation  Because we encapsulate objects  we can think about them as things which relate to each other in some way rather than getting bogged down in the subtle details of internal object structure  Abstraction is the ability to consider the bigger picture  removed from concern over little details  The root of the word is abstract as in the summary that appears at the top of a scholarly paper  not abstract as in a class which can only be instantiated as a derived subclass   I can honestly say that when I plop my butt down in my chair  I never think about how the structure of that chair will catch and hold my weight  It s a decent enough chair that I don t have to worry about those details  So I can turn my attention toward my computer  And again  I don t think about the component parts of my computer  I m just looking at a part of a webpage that represents a text area that I can type in  and I m communicating in words  barely even thinking about how my fingers always find the right letters so quickly on the keyboard  and how the connection is ultimately made between tapping these keys and posting to this forum  This is the great power of abstraction  Because the lower levels of the system can be trusted to work with consistency and precision  we have attention to spare for greater work

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Difference Between Abstraction and Encapsulation

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Most answers here focus on OOP but encapsulation begins much earlier    Every function is an encapsulation  in pseudocode   point x     1  4   point y     23  42    numeric d   distance x  y    Here  distance encapsulates the calculation of the  Euclidean  distance between two points in a plane  it hides implementation details  This is encapsulation  pure and simple  Abstraction is the process of generalisation  taking a concrete implementation and making it applicable to different  albeit somewhat related  types of data  The classical example of abstraction is C   s qsort function to sort data   The thing about qsort is that it doesn t care about the data it sorts     in fact  it doesn   t know what data it sorts  Rather  its input type is a typeless pointer  void   which is just C   s way of saying    I don t care about the type of data     this is also called type erasure   The important point is that the implementation of qsort always stays the same  regardless of data type  The only thing that has to change is the compare function  which differs from data type to data type  qsort therefore expects the user to provide said compare function as a function argument    Encapsulation and abstraction go hand in hand so much so that you could make the point that they are truly inseparable  For practical purposes  this is probably true  that said  here   s an encapsulation that   s not much of an abstraction   class point       numeric x     numeric y     We encapsulate the point   s coordinate  but we don   t materially abstract them away  beyond grouping them logically   And here   s an example of abstraction that   s not encapsulation   T pi lt T gt    3 1415926535   This is a generic variable pi with a given value  p   and the declaration doesn   t care about the exact type of the variable  Admittedly  I   d be hard-pressed to find something like this in real code  abstraction virtually always uses encapsulation  However  the above does actually exist in C   14   via variable templates    generic templates for variables   with a slightly more complex syntax  e g    template  lt typename T gt  constexpr T pi   T 3 1415926535

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Many answers and their examples are misleading    Encapsulation is the packing of data and functions operating on that data into a single component and restricting the access to some of the object s components  Encapsulation means that the internal representation of an object is generally hidden from view outside of the object s definition   Abstraction is a mechanism which represent the essential features without including implementation details        Encapsulation -- Information hiding  Abstraction -- Implementation hiding     Example     class foo      private          int a  b      public          foo int x 0  int y 0   a x   b y              int add                    return a b                      Internal representation of any object of foo class is hidden outside the class  --  Encapsulation  Any accessible member  data function  of an object of foo is restricted and can only be accessed by that object only    foo foo obj 3  4   int sum   foo obj add      Implementation of method add is hidden  --  Abstraction

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Let me try this with simple code example  Abstraction   Data Hiding   Encapsulation      Abstraction     interface IOperation               int GetSumOfNumbers              internal class OperationEven   IOperation                  data hiding         private IEnumerable lt int gt  numbers           public OperationEven IEnumerable lt int gt  numbers                        this numbers   numbers                       Encapsulation         public int GetSumOfNumbers                         return this numbers Where i   gt  i   2    0  Sum

[oop] Difference between abstraction and encapsulation?

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