Using "this" in setters

Question

I see no real difference between the following two methods of creating a setter, but was wondering if I am just naive. Is one more desirable than the other?

public void fooSetter(String bar)
{
    _bar = bar;
}


public void fooSetter(String bar)
{
    this._bar = bar;
}

Answer 1

There is no semantic difference in this case because there is no ambiguity. If, on the other hand, your instance field was also called bar then this would be required to disambiguate:

public void fooSetter(String bar)
{
    this.bar = bar;
}

Answer 2

You do not need "this" since there is no ambiguity. ("bar" and "_bar" are different. now if your field was called "bar" as well, you'd need it)

Answer 3

The different styles are mostly caused by what a programmer did before Java, what coding standards are present in the company, etc.

The desired style is to use:

    public class A {
          private Type property;

          public Type getProperty(){
              return this.property;
          }

          public void setProperty(Type property){
              this.property = property;
          }
    }

This is kind of the best-practice style and complies to the JavaBeans standard.