I have a question about public and private classes in Java. For example, if you have a public method inside of a private class, can the public method by accessed by other public/private classes? Thanks in advance.
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3 Answers
In order to be able to invoke a method inside a class, the method that does the invocation must have access to the class itself. Therefore, methods of the class inside of which a private class is defined will have access to the public method, and methods of other classes would not have the access.
Of course if a private class inherits a public class or implements a public interface, the methods of the base class or the interface will be visible to everyone.
answered Jul 4, 2012 at 1:27
Sergey Kalinichenko
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Comments
Depends. If the public method is defined by a public interface, callers can access it through the interface. Otherwise, they would not be able to get a reference to it without using the private class (that they cannot see).
Also, with reflection and disabled security manager, you can do these things, too, but that is a different question, I guess.
Comments
There can not be private class. Class can only have public or default access level.
1 Comment
Jesper
Not true. Nested classes can be private.
