Information Hiding

Information hiding is a criterion for modularization in software engineering. Modules are software components with programmable interfaces. Information hiding means that the details of an implementation remain hidden from the outside.

Thus the internal implementation of a module can be modified without affecting other modules. Information Hiding results in the reduction of dependencies between modules and thus supports a better maintenance and care of modules in this respect.

Information Hiding is without restrictions a criterion regarding aspects in the context of aspect-oriented programming. Further information Hiding is closely connected with the "Program to Interfaces" from the object-oriented programming. Thus it is expressed that in each case the interface of a module should be isolated from its internal implementation. Then each possible dependence between the modules is formulated explicitly, and the kind of the internal implementation is then the area of responsibility of the module.