When to use getters/setters with CFC's

[droopcat]

I'm a bit confused as to when it is good practice to use getter/setter methods
in CFC's and when to use the THIS scope to make the properties publicly
available. There are some articles around, but some are creating getter/setter
methods for each property while others strongly discourage using getter/setter
methods for single properties and even others are just creating all properties
in the THIS scope so there is no need for getter/setter methods. Does anyone
know of a comprehensive article that explains this very clearly (in relation to
CFC's)

[mpwoodward *TMM*]

droopcat wrote:

> I'm a bit confused as to when it is good practice to use getter/setter methods
> in CFC's and when to use the THIS scope to make the properties publicly
> available. There are some articles around, but some are creating getter/setter
> methods for each property while others strongly discourage using getter/setter
> methods for single properties and even others are just creating all properties
> in the THIS scope so there is no need for getter/setter methods. Does anyone
> know of a comprehensive article that explains this very clearly (in relation to
> CFC's)
>

I'm sure you'll get multiple opinions on this, but here's my take. In
general I don't use the THIS scope in my CFCs. The THIS scope makes
everything publicly-available directly to the world outside the CFC. If
you use the variables scope and getters/setters, then you have more
control over things and can (if you need to) add validation, permission
checking, and all sorts of other functionality to work with your getters
and setters. That way the requests to get and set your CFC attributes
can be more controlled.

Matt

--
Matt Woodward
Team Macromedia - ColdFusion