Encapsulation

Encapsulation is an object-oriented programming concept that involves bundling data and methods together into a single unit called a class. The class serves as a blueprint for creating objects that contain both data and the methods that operate on that data. The data and methods are protected within the class and are not accessible from outside the class, except through specific methods that are defined in the class.

Encapsulation provides several benefits, including abstraction, information hiding, and modularity. Abstraction is achieved by defining the public interface of the class, which is the set of methods that can be accessed from outside the class. Information hiding protects the data from direct manipulation, which helps to maintain data integrity and consistency. Modularity makes it easier to maintain and reuse code, because each class can be treated as a separate module that can be independently tested and modified.