Which option represents a form of data hiding related to encapsulation?

Which option represents a form of data hiding related to encapsulation?

• A. Direct access to private fields is allowed
• B. Data hiding
• C. Exposing global variables
• D. Polymorphism

Answer: (B)

Data hiding is a form of encapsulation where you restrict direct access to an object's internal data and expose a safe interface for interaction. By making fields private and providing public methods (getters/setters or other operations), you protect the internal state from external misuse and allow the implementation to change without breaking external code. This is exactly what encapsulation aims to achieve: control over how data is accessed and modified. Directly allowing access to private fields violates data hiding and defeats encapsulation, so it isn’t the right choice. Exposing global variables or other forms of external state breaks encapsulation as well, and polymorphism deals with how objects of different types can be treated uniformly rather than with hiding data.

Data hiding is a form of encapsulation where you restrict direct access to an object's internal data and expose a safe interface for interaction. By making fields private and providing public methods (getters/setters or other operations), you protect the internal state from external misuse and allow the implementation to change without breaking external code. This is exactly what encapsulation aims to achieve: control over how data is accessed and modified.

Directly allowing access to private fields violates data hiding and defeats encapsulation, so it isn’t the right choice. Exposing global variables or other forms of external state breaks encapsulation as well, and polymorphism deals with how objects of different types can be treated uniformly rather than with hiding data.