It works, but only you the children tries to access it own variable, not variable of other instance ( even if it belongs to the same inheritance tree ). See this sample code to understand it better: //in Parent.java package parentpackage; public class Parent { protected String parentVariable = “whatever”;// define protected variable } // … Read more
Don’t know the rationale, but JLS confirms this in 6.6.2. Details on protected Access (emphasis mine): A protected member or constructor of an object may be accessed from outside the package in which it is declared only by code that is responsible for the implementation of that object. So: package P2; public class P2 { … Read more
class A { private int a; public A(int a) { this.a = a; } public int getA() {return a;} } class B extends A { public B(int b) { super(b); } public int getB() {return getA();} } int result = new B(10).getA(); result will be 10. Private field a in class A is kind of … Read more
Before C# 7.2 we had protected internal modifier. This really means protected OR internal, that is – member A is accessible to child classes and also to any class in the current assembly, even if that class is not child of class A (so restriction implied by “protected” is relaxed). private protected really means protected … Read more
Here are all access modifiers in Venn diagrams, from more limiting to more promiscuous: private: private protected: – added in C# 7.2 internal: protected: protected internal: public:
Constructors are the same as methods in this respect – if you don’t give an explicit public, private or protected then the constructor gets the default “package private” visibility. It can be called from within the same class or from any other class in the same package, but not from subclasses in a different package … Read more
This is legal C++, ยง11.6/1 says: Access is checked at the call point using the type of the expression used to denote the object for which the member function is called (B* in the example above). The access of the member function in the class in which it was defined (D in the example above) … Read more
It’s not possible in C#. Just for the sake of completeness, this is supported in IL (family and assembly access modifier).
The webpage @MadProgrammer linked gives a decent explanation: “The protected modifier specifies that the member can only be accessed within its own package (as with package-private) and, in addition, by a subclass of its class in another package.” This means the protected member must be accessed directly through either the class it is defined in … Read more
In theory it does not matter if you say public static final or final static public, but if you follow the usual convention, other people will able to read your code more easily. Here is the preferred order: [ public | protected | private ] static abstract synchronized [ transient | volatile ] final native … Read more