inheritance - flow

[Mark Henryson]

I have slighlty confused with the flow of the below pgm:
Please someone explain it:

class A
{
   int i;
 
   A()
   {
      
   }
}
 
class B extends A
{
    B(int i)
    {
        this((short) i);
    }    
 
    private B(short j)
    {
        i=j;
    }
}
 
public class Q13 extends B
{
   Q13(int i)
   {
       super(i);
   }
 
   public static void main(String args[])
   {
       System.out.println(new Q13(3).i);   //line 1
   }
}  

Options:
a. Prints: 0
b. Prints: 3
c. Prints nothing
d. Compilation error.
e. An IllegalAccessError is thrown at runtime because 'i' is not accessible on line 1.

[Hentay Duke]

The answer is it prints 3. As for the flow, try putting sysout statements in each of the constructors and that will show you the flow.

[Mark Henryson]

System.out.println(new Q13(3).i); //line 1

What the above statement implies?

[Lee Diego]

System.out.println(new Q13(3).i);

is the same as...

Q13 q13 = new Q13(3);
System.out.println( q13.i );

The point is that the Q13 object is created and
the constructor is called, it just don't have a
variable referencing it (you cannot get hold of
that particular object after line 1).

could perhaps be written a bit easier with

System.out.println( (new Q13(3)).i );