Doubts on Protected Members

[jammy ponkia]

Hi All,

I have a class pack in a package packed as follows

package packed;
public class pack
{
static public int x1 = 7;
static protected int x2 = 8;
static int x3=9;
static private int x4 =10;
}
An other class Test in a different package
import packed.pack;
class test extends pack
{
public static void main( String args[] )
{
pack p = new pack();
System.out.println( pack.x2 );
}
}

If i remove static from protected variable x2, i am getting a compiler error that x2 is not visible.Why is it so?

As per the API, i should be able to access the protected variables in or outside the package using inheritance.

[Ravikanth kolli]

hi jammy,
you are now accessing the variable in a static way so if you remove static it is going to give a compile error. So if you need to access x2 then using the instance p should help.
It is going to be something like p.x2

Hope this explains the question

[Nevin kumar]

hi,
If you remove static modifier to variable x2 then it becomes a instance member,you cannot access a instance member using a class name.In that case you can access x2 using reference p as long as x2 is static only.Because
you can access protected members in a different package only through inheritance but you cannot access them by creating a reference to that class.In that case you can access only static members but you cannot access instance members by using references.
[ March 23, 2008: Message edited by: Naveen kumar ]