Can we declare a class as protected?

No, we cannot declare a top-level class as private or protected. It can be either public or default (no modifier).

Can I declare a class as private in Java?

Yes, we can declare a class as private but these classes can be only inner or nested classes. We can’t a top-level class as private because it would be completely useless as nothing would have access to it.

Can we declare method as protected in Java?

Protected keyword in Java refers to one of its access modifiers. The methods or data members declared as protected can be accessed from: Within the same class. Different classes of same packages.

Why we declare class as public in Java?

public is a Java keyword which declares a member’s access as public. Public members are visible to all other classes. This helps with encapsulation and information hiding, since it allows you to change the implementation of a class without affecting the consumers who use only the public API of the class.

Can we declare class as final in Java?

You can declare some or all of a class’s methods final. You use the final keyword in a method declaration to indicate that the method cannot be overridden by subclasses. The Object class does this—a number of its methods are final . A class that is declared final cannot be subclassed.

Can we write class inside a class in Java?

In Java, it is possible to define a class within another class, such classes are known as nested classes. A nested class is also a member of its enclosing class. As a member of its enclosing class, a nested class can be declared private, public, protected, or package private(default).

Why protected modifier is not applicable for classes?

Since there is no way to restrict this class being subclassed by only few classes (we cannot restrict class being inherited by only few classes out of all the available classes in a package/outside of a package), there is no use of protected access specifiers for top level classes. Hence it is not allowed.

Can a class be declared with a protected modifier?

Protected Access Modifier – Protected The protected access modifier cannot be applied to class and interfaces. Methods, fields can be declared protected, however methods and fields in a interface cannot be declared protected.

Can protected variables be accessible from class to class?

Protected Access Modifier – Protected Variables, methods, and constructors, which are declared protected in a superclass can be accessed only by the subclasses in other package or any class within the package of the protected members’ class. The protected access modifier cannot be applied to class and interfaces.

Can an inner class be protected?

protected Inner Class There is one more particular case — a protected inner class. As we can see, this is a static inner class, and so can be constructed from outside of an instance of FirstClass. However, as it is protected, we can only instantiate it from code in the same package as FirstClass.

Why we use void main in java?

The main() method is static so that JVM can invoke it without instantiating the class. Void: It is a keyword and used to specify that a method doesn’t return anything. As main() method doesn’t return anything, its return type is void. As soon as the main() method terminates, the java program terminates too.

Should classes be public or private?

We should use public access modifier if we want to make the method or property visible from anywhere, other classes, and instances of the object. Use the private access modifier if you want to make the method or property visible in its own class only. Avoid public fields except for constants.

What does it mean when a class is protected in Java?

Now there declaring top class as protected will mean that it is accessible to the current package as well as sub packages. Now there’s no concept of sub packages in Java, so this is not legal in Java. You can declare inner classes as private or protected, but it is not allowed in outer classes.

Is it possible to declare a class as protected?

You can declare nested and inner classes as protected or private, though. As you know default is for package level access and protected is for package level plus non-package classes but which extends this class (Point to be noted here is you can extend the class only if it is visible!).

Can We have private/protected inner classes in Java?

We can have private/protected inner classes as they restrict the access to a certain level. But making an outer class protected doesn’t make sense as we need access to the class as a unit and protected access comes for components of a class which is extended.

Why can’t we use private or protected keywords while declaring outer classes?

As soon as we try to use private or protected keyword while declaring an outer class compiler gives a compilation error saying “Illegal modifier for the class your_class_name; only public, abstract & final are permitted”. Here in this article, we are going to study why we are not allowed to use these keywords while declaring outer classes.