Difference

[uma sakthi]

Can any one tell me the difference between initializer and a constructor
uma

[mansoor iqbal]

contructors can be used to initialize variables. there is no "thing" such as an Initializer in Java

[V Srinivasan]

Yes, there is no such thing called Initializer. But Java does initialization in certain cases i.e. statics, instance(if not initialised) and reference(set to null) and Arrays and Strings too.
char initialised to '\u0000'
byte to 0
short to 0
int to 0
float to 0.0f
double to 0.0d
object refence to null
boolian to false
I think Arrays and Strings are also set to null when it is declared.
Anybody please clarify.
Thanks
[This message has been edited by V Srinivasan (edited February 13, 2001).]

[Harry Prasad]

Initializers are similar to Constructors in functionality.
They are mainly used in Anonymous classes, where we don't have the luxury of Constructors.

[uma sakthi]

Thanks for the reply..

[Latha Kalaga]

Hi! Uma
Initializers are used in initialization of objects and classes. They can also be used to define constants in interfaces. The initializers come in the following flavours:
- static and Instance variable initializer expressions
- static initializer blocks
- instance initializer blocks.
During creation of an object, constructor from the super class is invoked, then instance initializers are invoked in the order in which they are specified.
You can refer to page 265 - for detailed explanation from Khalid A.Mughal's book in case you have this book.

[Hungson Le]

HI,
Both initialzer and constructor are used to initialize objects. Initializer gets called before the constructor within the same class. For annonymous class, we must use initializer since constructor is not available (since the annonymous class doesn't have a name).
LHS