Use of JavaScript getters and setters in website development
JavaScript is an object-based paradigm, and all the object-oriented programming languages employ the getters and setters in website development. An object in a Programming language is a collection of properties. Here, properties are the association of a name/ key and a value. In other words, properties are the static key-value pairs. A property value may be a function. As a function, the property is known as a method. A method is a specific function of an object. An object can have many methods and properties. No doubt, your browser will have a predefined object. However, you can define your objects as well.
What are getters and setters?
Getters and setters are also known as the accessors and mutators. There are two types of properties in JavaScript such as Data properties and accessor properties. These accessor properties are referred to as the getter and setter properties. The setter method sets/ updates an instance variable’s value, whereas the getter returns the value. Using JavaScript getters and setters in website development is common now.
How to create Getters and Setters?
There are three following ways to create Getters and setters.
- Using the get and set keywords
- Using the Object.defineProperty() method
- Using the default getter and setter methods, also known as the default method syntax
Here, we are discussing the get and set keyword method only.
The get and set keywords
As the title indicates, the getter and setter variables start with a ‘get’ and ‘set,’ and the variable follows with a capital letter. In simple words, get means to define a getter property to get a property’s value rather than the method. Its name has to be different than the data property in which that value to be accessed is stored. While using getters and setters in website development, you must note that the old Internet Explorers (IE8) do not support the get keywords.
However, the setter defines a setter method to set the value of a property. For setters, the same names can be used as the getters along with some parameters. These parameters allow passing the new values towards the properties.
Using the get and set keywords, you will have an advantage in website development. As the names for getters and setters are different, you won’t mix them with data properties’ values. Moreover, if you use the get and set keywords, you will be able to keep your data properties private.
