Top level class Vs inner classes access specifiers

[Harikrishna Gorrepati]

Hi,

Why top level class cannot be private or protected and inner classes can be private or protected?

[Deepak Bala]

Because that is the way it is. What would you do with a top level private class ? Can you even use one ?

[Arjun Srivastava]

inner classes have most strange concepts that are not applicable to regular class sometimes

like using abstract and static simultaneously (legal)

also other modifiers(private and protected) that applied only to inner class.(legal)

[Abimaran Kugathasan]

Arjun Srivastava wrote:
like using abstract and static simultaneously (legal)

Some inner class needs this behavior, but for outer classes, it doesn't make sense!

[Gari Jain]

Harikrishna

Innerclasses are defined within another class and they are like members of the enclosing class. So just like the members of a class can be private or protected too, innerclasses can also be private or protected, just like methods of a class(because they are members of the class) can use the private members of the class, that is why innerclasses can also access the private members of the class.

One reason for the behaviour shown by innerclasses is because they are members of the enclosing class.