What is encapsulation in object-oriented programming?

Encapsulation is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming that involves restricting access to certain components of an object and bundling data with the methods that operate on that data. This means that the internal state of an object is protected from unintended interference and misuse by exposing only what is necessary through public interfaces, typically getter and setter methods.

By employing encapsulation, a developer can ensure that the internal representation of an object can be changed without affecting the code that uses the object. This promotes modularity and maintainability in code, as changes to the internal structure of a class do not ripple through the rest of the program, provided that the public interface remains consistent.

The other options do not accurately describe encapsulation. Preventing polymorphism relates to how methods can be overridden or overloaded in subclasses, which is separate from encapsulation. Automatic conversion of data types refers to type casting and conversion, rather than encapsulating data and methods together. Meanwhile, the composition of classes is related to building complex types from simpler ones and does not specifically address the concept of controlling access to the components within a class or object.