Java class types static

Chapter 8. Classes

A class declaration defines a new class and describes how it is implemented (§8.1).

A top level class (§7.6) is a class declared directly in a compilation unit.

A nested class is any class whose declaration occurs within the body of another class or interface declaration. A nested class may be a member class (§8.5, §9.5), a local class (§14.3), or an anonymous class (§15.9.5).

Some kinds of nested class are an inner class (§8.1.3), which is a class that can refer to enclosing class instances, local variables, and type variables.

An enum class (§8.9) is a class declared with abbreviated syntax that defines a small set of named class instances.

A record class (§8.10) is a class declared with abbreviated syntax that defines a simple aggregate of values.

This chapter discusses the common semantics of all classes. Details that are specific to particular kinds of classes are discussed in the sections dedicated to these constructs.

A class may be declared abstract (§8.1.1.1) and must be declared abstract if it is incompletely implemented; such a class cannot be instantiated, but can be extended by subclasses. A class may be declared final (§8.1.1.2), in which case it cannot have subclasses. If a class is declared public , then it can be referred to from code in any package of its module and potentially from code in other modules. Each class except Object is an extension of (that is, a subclass of) a single existing class (§8.1.4) and may implement interfaces (§8.1.5). Classes may be generic (§8.1.2), that is, they may declare type variables whose bindings may differ among different instances of the class.

Class declarations may be decorated with annotations (§9.7) just like any other kind of declaration.

The body of a class declares members (fields, methods, classes, and interfaces), instance and static initializers, and constructors (§8.1.6). The scope (§6.3) of a member (§8.2) is the entire body of the declaration of the class to which the member belongs. Field, method, member class, member interface, and constructor declarations may include the access modifiers public , protected , or private (§6.6). The members of a class include both declared and inherited members (§8.2). Newly declared fields can hide fields declared in a superclass or superinterface. Newly declared member classes and member interfaces can hide member classes and member interfaces declared in a superclass or superinterface. Newly declared methods can hide, implement, or override methods declared in a superclass or superinterface.

Field declarations (§8.3) describe class variables, which are incarnated once, and instance variables, which are freshly incarnated for each instance of the class. A field may be declared final (§8.3.1.2), in which case it can be assigned to only once. Any field declaration may include an initializer.

Member class declarations (§8.5) describe nested classes that are members of the surrounding class. Member classes may be static , in which case they have no access to the instance variables of the surrounding class; or they may be inner classes.

Member interface declarations (§8.5) describe nested interfaces that are members of the surrounding class.

Method declarations (§8.4) describe code that may be invoked by method invocation expressions (§15.12). A class method is invoked relative to the class; an instance method is invoked with respect to some particular object that is an instance of a class. A method whose declaration does not indicate how it is implemented must be declared abstract . A method may be declared final (§8.4.3.3), in which case it cannot be hidden or overridden. A method may be implemented by platform-dependent native code (§8.4.3.4). A synchronized method (§8.4.3.6) automatically locks an object before executing its body and automatically unlocks the object on return, as if by use of a synchronized statement (§14.19), thus allowing its activities to be synchronized with those of other threads (§17 (Threads and Locks)).

Method names may be overloaded (§8.4.9).

Instance initializers (§8.6) are blocks of executable code that may be used to help initialize an instance when it is created (§15.9).

Static initializers (§8.7) are blocks of executable code that may be used to help initialize a class.

Constructors (§8.8) are similar to methods, but cannot be invoked directly by a method call; they are used to initialize new class instances. Like methods, they may be overloaded (§8.8.8).

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Understanding Class Members

In this section, we discuss the use of the static keyword to create fields and methods that belong to the class, rather than to an instance of the class.

Class Variables

When a number of objects are created from the same class blueprint, they each have their own distinct copies of instance variables. In the case of the Bicycle class, the instance variables are cadence , gear , and speed . Each Bicycle object has its own values for these variables, stored in different memory locations.

Sometimes, you want to have variables that are common to all objects. This is accomplished with the static modifier. Fields that have the static modifier in their declaration are called static fields or class variables. They are associated with the class, rather than with any object. Every instance of the class shares a class variable, which is in one fixed location in memory. Any object can change the value of a class variable, but class variables can also be manipulated without creating an instance of the class.

For example, suppose you want to create a number of Bicycle objects and assign each a serial number, beginning with 1 for the first object. This ID number is unique to each object and is therefore an instance variable. At the same time, you need a field to keep track of how many Bicycle objects have been created so that you know what ID to assign to the next one. Such a field is not related to any individual object, but to the class as a whole. For this you need a class variable, numberOfBicycles , as follows:

Class variables are referenced by the class name itself, as in

This makes it clear that they are class variables.

You can use the Bicycle constructor to set the id instance variable and increment the numberOfBicycles class variable:

public class Bicycle < private int cadence; private int gear; private int speed; private int id; private static int numberOfBicycles = 0; public Bicycle(int startCadence, int startSpeed, int startGear)< gear = startGear; cadence = startCadence; speed = startSpeed; // increment number of Bicycles // and assign ID number id = ++numberOfBicycles; > // new method to return the ID instance variable public int getID() < return id; >. >

Class Methods

The Java programming language supports static methods as well as static variables. Static methods, which have the static modifier in their declarations, should be invoked with the class name, without the need for creating an instance of the class, as in

instanceName.methodName(args)

A common use for static methods is to access static fields. For example, we could add a static method to the Bicycle class to access the numberOfBicycles static field:

public static int getNumberOfBicycles()

Not all combinations of instance and class variables and methods are allowed:

• Instance methods can access instance variables and instance methods directly.
• Instance methods can access class variables and class methods directly.
• Class methods can access class variables and class methods directly.
• Class methods cannot access instance variables or instance methods directly—they must use an object reference. Also, class methods cannot use the this keyword as there is no instance for this to refer to.

Constants

The static modifier, in combination with the final modifier, is also used to define constants. The final modifier indicates that the value of this field cannot change.

For example, the following variable declaration defines a constant named PI , whose value is an approximation of pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter):

static final double PI = 3.141592653589793;

Constants defined in this way cannot be reassigned, and it is a compile-time error if your program tries to do so. By convention, the names of constant values are spelled in uppercase letters. If the name is composed of more than one word, the words are separated by an underscore (_).

Note: If a primitive type or a string is defined as a constant and the value is known at compile time, the compiler replaces the constant name everywhere in the code with its value. This is called a compile-time constant. If the value of the constant in the outside world changes (for example, if it is legislated that pi actually should be 3.975), you will need to recompile any classes that use this constant to get the current value.

The Bicycle Class

After all the modifications made in this section, the Bicycle class is now:

public class Bicycle < private int cadence; private int gear; private int speed; private int id; private static int numberOfBicycles = 0; public Bicycle(int startCadence, int startSpeed, int startGear) < gear = startGear; cadence = startCadence; speed = startSpeed; >public int getID() < return id; >public static int getNumberOfBicycles() < return numberOfBicycles; >public int getCadence() < return cadence; >public void setCadence(int newValue) < cadence = newValue; >public int getGear() < return gear; >public void setGear(int newValue) < gear = newValue; >public int getSpeed() < return speed; >public void applyBrake(int decrement) < speed -= decrement; >public void speedUp(int increment) < speed += increment; >>

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Java class types static

Program of the counter without static variable

In this example, we have created an instance variable named count which is incremented in the constructor. Since instance variable gets the memory at the time of object creation, each object will have the copy of the instance variable. If it is incremented, it won’t reflect other objects. So each object will have the value 1 in the count variable.

Program of counter by static variable

As we have mentioned above, static variable will get the memory only once, if any object changes the value of the static variable, it will retain its value.

2) Java static method

If you apply static keyword with any method, it is known as static method.

• A static method belongs to the class rather than the object of a class.
• A static method can be invoked without the need for creating an instance of a class.
• A static method can access static data member and can change the value of it.

Example of static method

Output:111 Karan BBDIT 222 Aryan BBDIT 333 Sonoo BBDIT

Another example of a static method that performs a normal calculation

Restrictions for the static method

There are two main restrictions for the static method. They are:

1. The static method can not use non static data member or call non-static method directly.
2. this and super cannot be used in static context.

Q) Why is the Java main method static?

Ans) It is because the object is not required to call a static method. If it were a non-static method, JVM creates an object first then call main() method that will lead the problem of extra memory allocation.

3) Java static block

• Is used to initialize the static data member.
• It is executed before the main method at the time of classloading.

Example of static block

Output:static block is invoked Hello main

Q) Can we execute a program without main() method?

Ans) No, one of the ways was the static block, but it was possible till JDK 1.6. Since JDK 1.7, it is not possible to execute a Java class without the main method.

Since JDK 1.7 and above, output would be:

Error: Main method not found in class A3, please define the main method as: public static void main(String[] args) or a JavaFX application class must extend javafx.application.Application

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