Cannot acces Protected Variable

[Kasun Wixkramanayake]

package main;
 
public class ClassA{
 
    protected int protectedAttribute;    //protected
 
    public void doSomething(){
        //visible in the same class
        protectedAttribute = 20;
    }
}


package other;  //other package

import main.ClassA;
 
public class OtherSubClassA extends ClassA {
    public void doSomething(){
 
        ClassA ref = new ClassA();
 
        
       ref.protectedAttribute = 20; //compiler error
 
       
       this.protectedAttribute = 30;
    }
}

when i try this programme i got some compile error,why i cannot access protectedattribute using ref object variable

[Matthew Brown]

Subclasses can access protected members by inheritance. So an instance of the subclass can access it's own protected member from the superclass, but it can't access the same member on a different object. Your example neatly demonstrates exactly what this means - line 27 compiles but line 24 doesn't.

[Sathiesh Kumar Vs]

Hi

As Mathew said, you are trying to access the protected variable on the reference of the Super class, which you cannot do.
This is as well same as OtherSubClassA not extending ClassA.