Access modifiers

[Shruthi Sam]

Hi,
Suppose i am having a class x which contains a protected method. The class x resides in a package say A. Now another class in package B extends this class x in package A and tries to override the protected method in class x. Now what will be the access modifier of this method in the subclass? Is it private? will the compiler fail if we assign "weaker" privileges to the overriden methods? Please clarify.

package A;
class x
{
protected void m()
{
}
}

package B;
class y
{
 [b][u]private [/u][/b]void m()
{
}
}

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

try to implement . what error you are getting in compile-time ? Google for private,package-private(default),protected,public access specifiers

[Harshit Rastogi]

while overriding the method the scope/access of the method cannot be more restricted.

For eg, in your case the protected method can be overriden with public and protected modfier. if you put private, compile time error will be there

similarily public method cannot become protected ...

[Shruthi Sam]

Thanks Harshit.. I understood.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Harshit Rastogi wrote:
For eg, in your case the protected method can be overriden with public and protected modfier. if you put private, compile time error will be there

Even can't extends class X since it is in different package

[Shruthi Sam]

you can import the package and extend the class. It will work.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Shruthi Sam wrote:you can import the package and extend the class. It will work.

for that class needs to be public

[Shruthi Sam]

yes it should be. Sorry, i forgot to mention that.

[vvv gupta]

Yes Shruti
while overriding the method the scope/access of the method cannot be more restricted.
This is the rule for overriding.

Subclass can add to funcnality whtever it recived from base class It cannot retrict its behaviour.