abstract method in interface

[Chun Wang]

I am using an old compiler (jdk1.1) and I wanna make sure my understanding is correct. I think you can declare a method abstract (although not necessary) in an interface . but some book says "methods in interface should NOT be declared abstract as they are implicitly abstract". so my question is : can you use the abstract modifier for interface method?
please help. thanks a lot!
chun

[Tom Pridham]

You can compile an interface method (in jdk 1.3) with the abstract modifier without error.
To quote Mughal:
"Interfaces just specify the method prototypes and not the implementation; they are, by their nature, implicitly abstract, i.e. they cannot be instantiated. Thus specifying an interface with the keyword abstract is not appropriate, and should be omitted."

[Velmurugan Periasamy]

This is from JLS:

Every method declaration in the body of an interface is implicitly abstract, so its body is always represented by a semicolon, not a block.
For compatibility with older versions of the Java platform, it is permitted but discouraged, as a matter of style, to redundantly specify the abstract modifier for methods declared in interfaces.

URL: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/interfaces.doc.html#78651
HTH

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Velmurugan Periasamy
Sun Certified Java Programmer
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Study notes for Sun Java Certification
http://www.geocities.com/velmurugan_p/