Hi All , I am curious know something about the Null interface . What are they ? Can Cloneable , Serializable be called as Null interfaces ? Please let me know. Thanks.
Valentin Crettaz
Gold Digger
Sheriff
Joined: Aug 26, 2001
Posts: 7610
posted
0
... A null interface is an interface with no method declaration. I don't really like this term since "null" has a special meaning in Java. I would prefer calling such an interface an "empty interface" or better a "tag interface" but not a "null interface". Maybe someone else has an idea as to why such interfaces have been called "null interfaces". I don't know who invented that but "null interface" does not exist in the official Java terminology. [ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Valentin Crettaz ]
Marker interface, also known as Tag interface, are like directives to the compiler without any method declaration. It is implemented in a class so that other java codes and JVM can test an object of it with "instanceof interface". java.io.Serializable, java.lang.Cloneable, java.util.EventListener, java.util.RandomAccess are marker interfaces from J2SE API that I can recall quickly.
To support with an example from the J2SE API Documentation, you'll see that Serializable is a marker interface, in its comment its written that All subtypes of a serializable class are themselves serializable.
BTW shewta, ArrayList is a concrete final class, its not an interface rather an implementation of RandomAccess marker interface.
Regards,
Ashik Uzzaman Senior Member of Technical Staff, Salesforce.com, San Francisco, CA, USA.
An interface containing no methods (a tag/marker interface) is poor form, however, the core API has done it, and many other, more disastrous, atrocities. You need not be so concerned with it.
0
