Before records appeared in Java 16, there was a common way to represent getters for private fields of a class: a method named "get" with a
capitalized field name. For example, for a String field named "myField" the signature of the getter method will be: public
String getMyField()
In records, getters are named differently. Getters created by default do not contain the "get" prefix. So for a record’s String field
"myField" the getter method will be: public String myField()
This means that if you want to override the default getter behavior it is better to use the method provided by records instead of creating a new
one. Otherwise, this will bring confusion to the users of the record as two getters will be available and even leads to bugs if the behavior is
different from the default one.
This rule raises an issue when a record contains a getter named "get" with a capitalized field name that is not behaving the same as the default
one.
Noncompliant code example
record Person(String name, int age) {
public String getName() { // Noncompliant
return name.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
}
}
Compliant solution
record Person(String name, int age) {
@Override
public String name() { // Compliant
return name.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
}
}
record Person(String name, int age) {
public String getNameUpperCase() { // Compliant
return name.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
}
}
record Person(String name, int age) {
public String getName() { // Compliant, is equivalent to 'name()'
return name;
}
}
record Person(String name, int age) {
@Override
public String name() { // Compliant
return name.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
}
public String getName() { // Compliant, equal to 'name()'
return name.toUpperCase(Locale.ROOT);
}
}
Exceptions
If the implementations of getMyField() and myField() methods are equivalent, the issue should not be raised as this was
probably done to support compatibility with the previous convention.
