The true definition of immutability?

Question

I am wondering how immutability is defined? If the values aren\'t exposed as public, so can\'t be modified, then it\'s enough?

Can the values be modified inside the type

Answer 1

An immutable object is one whose observable state can never be changed by any plausible sequence of code execution. An immutable type is one which guarantees that any instances exposed to the outside world will be immutable (this requirement is often stated as requiring that the object's state may only be set in its constructor; this isn't strictly necessary in the case of objects with private constructors, nor is it sufficient in the case of objects which call outside methods on themselves during construction).

A point which other answers have neglected, however, is a definition of an object's state. If Foo is a class, the state of a List consists of the sequence of object identities contained therein. If the only reference to a particular List instance is held by code which will neither cause that sequence to be changed, nor expose it to code that might do so, then that instance will be immutable, regardless of whether the Foo objects referred to therein are mutable or immutable.

To use an analogy, if one has a list of automobile VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) printed on tamper-evident paper, the list itself would be immutable even though cars aren't. Even if the list contains ten red cars today, it might contain ten blue cars tomorrow; they would still, however, be the same ten cars.