Constructor and Initializer block

While going through Khalid Mughal, I came across the following statement

Since constructors and initializer blocks are not members of a class, they are not inherited by a subclass.

Why is it that constructors and initializer blocks are not members of a class?

. . . because that is how the language was designed. Try searching for the history of Java and see whether that explain any more.

I think, they belong to objects rather than classes!

And instance fields (which are members) do not?

What about static variables and methods?

1. Constructor declarations are not members. They are never inherited.
2. The Java compiler copies initializer blocks into every constructor. Therefore, this approach can be used to share a block of code between multiple constructors. (you can check this by decompile a class having intializer block.)

Static variables and methods also cannot be inherited. They are specific to that class.
So, are they not members of the class?

In that case what all called as members of class and what not?

Class Body and Member Declarations. In other words, all fields, methods, nested classes and nested interfaces are members. Instance and static initializers and constructors are not.

Also, not all members can be overridden. Fields and nested classes / interfaces are members but cannot be overridden.

Instance and static initializers and constructors are not.

Is there any specific reason for not calling them as members of class? Obviously inheritance is not a reason.

They're just not--did you read the link provided?

And why isn't inheritance not a reason? Seriously--look at the link. Sections 8.1.6 and 8.2 address this *directly*.

They're just not--did you read the link provided?

Yeah. Now i got the things. "They're just not". I think there is no reason for that.

And why isn't inheritance not a reason? Seriously--look at the link.

Inheritance cannot be a reason because all the class members cannot be inherited to the sub classes, like static/private variables and methods.

Rob Prime wrote: Also, not all members can be overridden. Fields and nested classes / interfaces are members but cannot be overridden.

They cannot be overridden but they are most definitely inherited (although you can't access them if they're private, they're still there).