What does the Encapsulate refactoring pattern in IBM Refactoring Assistant accomplish?

Think of it like working hands-on with IBM mainframe systems — the answer here is 'It converts COBOL WORKING-STORAGE sections into Java private fields with getter and setter methods'. The Encapsulate pattern introduces a facade or wrapper interface around an existing group of COBOL programs, exposing a clean API while keeping the internal program structure unchanged during stabiliz. On real mainframe exams, this concept comes up repeatedly so make sure you have it locked in.