One Public Class Per Source File?

[rajani ramsagar]

Hi All!

I had this doubt that, why should a source file have only one public class?


1. If a source file has more than one public class, the compiler won't allow. why?

[Dominic Steng�rd]

Thats because the file name of the source code needs to be the same as the public class it contains. Would be difficult to know what to call the file if you could put two public classes inside one source file.
[ October 10, 2004: Message edited by: Dominic Steng�rd ]

[Mike Gershman]

javac compiler and the java interpreter need a way to search your entire CLASSPATH for the classes you require in your program. The only externally visible identifier of a compiled .class file is the filename. So the filename must be enough to find the classes you need. If there were a public class named Abc in a .class file named Fgh.class, javac and java would have no way to find it.

You might ask about classes with protected or package access. There, the directory names found in the directories in your CLASSPATH provide a visible trail to your classes.

[Tony Morris]

You might ask about classes with protected or package access

A top-level class can never have protected access.

Here is an example of some source with two public classes in one source file:

// File: X.java
public class X
{
    public class Y{}
}

To better rephrase, "You can't have more than one public top-level class in a single Java source file."