Java – Using Accessor and Mutator methods

Let’s go over the basics:
“Accessor” and “Mutator” are just fancy names fot a getter and a setter.
A getter, “Accessor”, returns a class’s variable or its value. A setter, “Mutator”, sets a class variable pointer or its value.

So first you need to set up a class with some variables to get/set:

public class IDCard
{
    private String mName;
    private String mFileName;
    private int mID;

}

But oh no! If you instantiate this class the default values for these variables will be meaningless.
B.T.W. “instantiate” is a fancy word for doing:

IDCard test = new IDCard();

So – let’s set up a default constructor, this is the method being called when you “instantiate” a class.

public IDCard()
{
    mName = "";
    mFileName = "";
    mID = -1;
}

But what if we do know the values we wanna give our variables? So let’s make another constructor, one that takes parameters:

public IDCard(String name, int ID, String filename)
{
    mName = name;
    mID = ID;
    mFileName = filename;
}

Wow – this is nice. But stupid. Because we have no way of accessing (=reading) the values of our variables. So let’s add a getter, and while we’re at it, add a setter as well:

public String getName()
{
    return mName;
}

public void setName( String name )
{
    mName = name;
}

Nice. Now we can access mName. Add the rest of the accessors and mutators and you’re now a certified Java newbie.
Good luck.