在 Java 中，public、 protected、 package-private 和 private 之间有什么区别？

In Java, are there clear rules on when to use each of access modifiers, namely the default (package private), public, protected and private, while making class and interface and dealing with inheritance?

转载于:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/215497/what-is-the-difference-between-public-protected-package-private-and-private-in

The official tutorial may be of some use to you.

            │ Class │ Package │ Subclass │ Subclass │ World
            │       │         │(same pkg)│(diff pkg)│ 
────────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────
public      │   +   │    +    │    +     │     +    │   +     
────────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────
protected   │   +   │    +    │    +     │     +    │         
────────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────
no modifier │   +   │    +    │    +     │          │    
────────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────
private     │   +   │         │          │          │    

+ : accessible
blank : not accessible

Easy rule. Start with declaring everything private. And then progress towards the public as the needs arise and design warrants it.

When exposing members ask yourself if you are exposing representation choices or abstraction choices. The first is something you want to avoid as it will introduce too many dependencies on the actual representation rather than on its observable behavior.

As a general rule I try to avoid overriding method implementations by subclassing; it's too easy to screw up the logic. Declare abstract protected methods if you intend for it to be overridden.

Also, use the @Override annotation when overriding to keep things from breaking when you refactor.

The difference can be found in the links already provided but which one to use usually comes down to the "Principle of Least Knowledge". Only allow the least visibility that is needed.

(Caveat: I am not a Java programmer, I am a Perl programmer. Perl has no formal protections which is perhaps why I understand the problem so well :) )

Private

Like you'd think, only the class in which it is declared can see it.

Package Private

Can only be seen and used by the package in which it was declared. This is the default in Java (which some see as a mistake).

Protected

Package Private + can be seen by subclasses or package member.

Public

Everyone can see it.

Published

Visible outside the code I control. (While not Java syntax, it is important for this discussion).

C++ defines an additional level called "friend" and the less you know about that the better.

When should you use what? The whole idea is encapsulation to hide information. As much as possible you want to hide the detail of how something is done from your users. Why? Because then you can change them later and not break anybody's code. This lets you optimize, refactor, redesign and fix bugs without worry that someone was using that code you just overhauled.

So, rule of thumb is to make things only as visible as they have to be. Start with private and only add more visibility as needed. Only make public that which is absolutely necessary for the user to know, every detail you make public cramps your ability to redesign the system.

If you want users to be able to customize behaviors, rather than making internals public so they can override them, it's often a better idea to shove those guts into an object and make that interface public. That way they can simply plug in a new object. For example, if you were writing a CD player and wanted the "go find info about this CD" bit customizable, rather than make those methods public you'd put all that functionality into its own object and make just your object getter/setter public. In this way being stingy about exposing your guts encourages good composition and separation of concerns

Personally, I stick with just "private" and "public". Many OO languages just have that. "Protected" can be handy, but it's really a cheat. Once an interface is more than private it's outside of your control and you have to go looking in other people's code to find uses.

This is where the idea of "published" comes in. Changing an interface (refactoring it) requires that you find all the code which is using it and change that, too. If the interface is private, well no problem. If it's protected you have to go find all your subclasses. If it's public you have to go find all the code which uses your code. Sometimes this is possible, for example if you're working on corporate code that's for internal use only it doesn't matter if an interface is public. You can grab all the code out of the corporate repository. But if an interface is "published", if there is code using it outside your control, then you're hosed. You must support that interface or risk breaking code. Even protected interfaces can be considered published (which is why I don't bother with protected).

Many languages find the hierarchical nature of public/protected/private to be too limiting and not in line with reality. To that end there is the concept of a trait class, but that's another show.

It's actually a bit more complicated than a simple grid shows. The grid tells you whether an access is allowed, but what exactly constitutes an access? Also, access levels interact with nested classes and inheritance in complex ways.

The "default" access (specified by the absence of a keyword) is also called package-private. Exception: in an interface, no modifier means public access; modifiers other than public are forbidden. Enum constants are always public.

Summary

Is an access to a member with this access specifier allowed?

Member is private: Only if member is defined within the same class as calling code.
Member is package private: Only if the calling code is within the member's immediately enclosing package.
Member is protected: Same package, or if member is defined in a superclass of the class containing the calling code.
Member is public: Yes.

What access specifiers apply to

Local variables and formal parameters cannot take access specifiers. Since they are inherently inaccessible to the outside according to scoping rules, they are effectively private.

For classes in the top scope, only public and package-private are permitted. This design choice is presumably because protected and private would be redundant at the package level (there is no inheritance of packages).

All the access specifiers are possible on class members (constructors, methods and static member functions, nested classes).

Related: Java Class Accessibility

Order

The access specifiers can be strictly ordered

public > protected > package-private > private

meaning that public provides the most access, private the least. Any reference possible on a private member is also valid for a package-private member; any reference to a package-private member is valid on a protected member, and so on. (Giving access to protected members to other classes in the same package was considered a mistake.)

Notes

A class's methods are allowed to access private members of other objects of the same class. More precisely, a method of class C can access private members of C on objects of any subclass of C. Java doesn't support restricting access by instance, only by class. (Compare with Scala, which does support it using private[this].)
You need access to a constructor to construct an object. Thus if all constructors are private, the class can only be constructed by code living within the class (typically static factory methods or static variable initializers). Similarly for package-private or protected constructors.
- Only having private constructors also means that the class cannot be subclassed externally, since Java requires a subclass's constructors to implicitly or explicitly call a superclass constructor. (It can, however, contain a nested class that subclasses it.)

Inner classes

You also have to consider nested scopes, such as inner classes. An example of the complexity is that inner classes have members, which themselves can take access modifiers. So you can have a private inner class with a public member; can the member be accessed? (See below.) The general rule is to look at scope and think recursively to see whether you can access each level.

However, this is quite complicated, and for full details, consult the Java Language Specification. (Yes, there have been compiler bugs in the past.)

For a taste of how these interact, consider this example. It is possible to "leak" private inner classes; this is usually a warning:

class Test {
    public static void main(final String ... args) {
        System.out.println(Example.leakPrivateClass()); // OK
        Example.leakPrivateClass().secretMethod(); // error
    }
}

class Example {
    private static class NestedClass {
        public void secretMethod() {
            System.out.println("Hello");
        }
    }
    public static NestedClass leakPrivateClass() {
        return new NestedClass();
    }
}

Compiler output:

Test.java:4: secretMethod() in Example.NestedClass is defined in an inaccessible class or interface
        Example.leakPrivateClass().secretMethod(); // error
                                  ^
1 error

Some related questions:

Java - Method accessibility inside package-private class?

In very short

public: accessible from everywhere.
protected: accessible by the classes of the same package and the subclasses residing in any package.
default (no modifier specified): accessible by the classes of the same package.
private: accessible within the same class only.

                | highest precedence <---------> lowest precedence
*———————————————+———————————————+———————————+———————————————+———————
 \ xCanBeSeenBy | this          | any class | this subclass | any
  \__________   | class         | in same   | in another    | class
             \  | nonsubbed     | package   | package       |    
Modifier of x \ |               |           |               |       
————————————————*———————————————+———————————+———————————————+———————
public          |       ✔       |     ✔     |       ✔       |   ✔   
————————————————+———————————————+———————————+———————————————+———————
protected       |       ✔       |     ✔     |       ✔       |   ✘   
————————————————+———————————————+———————————+———————————————+———————
package-private |               |           |               |
(no modifier)   |       ✔       |     ✔     |       ✘       |   ✘   
————————————————+———————————————+———————————+———————————————+———————
private         |       ✔       |     ✘     |       ✘       |   ✘

The most misunderstood access modifier in Java is protected. We know that it's similar to the default modifier with one exception in which subclasses can see it. But how? Here is an example which hopefully clarifies the confusion:

Assume that we have 2 classes; Father and Son, each in its own package:

package fatherpackage;

public class Father
{

}

-------------------------------------------

package sonpackage;

public class Son extends Father
{

}

Let's add a protected method foo() to Father.

package fatherpackage;

public class Father
{
    protected void foo(){}
}

The method foo() can be called in 4 contexts:

Inside a class that is located in the same package where foo() is defined (fatherpackage):

package fatherpackage;

public class SomeClass
{
    public void someMethod(Father f, Son s)
    {
        f.foo();
        s.foo();
    }
}

Inside a subclass, on the current instance via this or super:

package sonpackage;

public class Son extends Father
{
    public void sonMethod()
    {
        this.foo();
        super.foo();
    }
}

On an reference whose type is the same class:

package fatherpackage;

public class Father
{
    public void fatherMethod(Father f)
    {
        f.foo(); // valid even if foo() is private
    }
}

-------------------------------------------

package sonpackage;

public class Son extends Father
{
    public void sonMethod(Son s)
    {
        s.foo();
    }
}

On an reference whose type is the parent class and it is inside the package where foo() is defined (fatherpackage) [This can be included inside context no. 1]:
```
package fatherpackage;

public class Son extends Father
{
    public void sonMethod(Father f)
    {
        f.foo();
    }
}
```

The following situations are not valid.
1. On an reference whose type is the parent class and it is outside the package where foo() is defined (fatherpackage):
```
package sonpackage;

public class Son extends Father
{
    public void sonMethod(Father f)
    {
        f.foo(); // compilation error
    }
}
```
2. A non-subclass inside a package of a subclass (A subclass inherits the protected members from its parent, and it makes them private to non-subclasses):
```
package sonpackage;

public class SomeClass
{
    public void someMethod(Son s) throws Exception
    {
        s.foo(); // compilation error
    }
}
```

Private

Methods,Variables and Constructors

Methods, Variables and Constructors that are declared private can only be accessed within the declared class itself.

Class and Interface

Private access modifier is the most restrictive access level. Class and interfaces cannot be private.

Note

Variables that are declared private can be accessed outside the class if public getter methods are present in the class. Variables, methods and constructors which are declared protected in a superclass can be accessed only by the subclasses in other package or any class within the package of the protected members' class.

Protected

Class and Interface

The protected access modifier cannot be applied to class and interfaces.

Methods, fields can be declared protected, however methods and fields in a interface cannot be declared protected.

Note

Protected access gives the subclass a chance to use the helper method or variable, while preventing a nonrelated class from trying to use it.

Public

A class, method, constructor, interface etc declared public can be accessed from any other class.

Therefore fields, methods, blocks declared inside a public class can be accessed from any class belonging to the Java Universe.

Different Packages

However if the public class we are trying to access is in a different package, then the public class still need to be imported.

Because of class inheritance, all public methods and variables of a class are inherited by its subclasses.

Default -No keyword:

Default access modifier means we do not explicitly declare an access modifier for a class, field, method, etc.

Within the same Packages

A variable or method declared without any access control modifier is available to any other class in the same package. The fields in an interface are implicitly public static final and the methods in an interface are by default public.

Note

We cannot Override the Static fields.if you try to override it does not show any error but it doesnot work what we except.

References links

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_access_modifiers.htm

Private: Limited access to class only

Default (no modifier): Limited access to class and package

Protected: Limited access to class, package and subclasses (both inside and outside package)

Public: Accessible to class, package (all), and subclasses... In short, everywhere.

Access modifiers are there to restrict access at several levels.

Public: It is basically as simple as you can access from any class whether that is in same package or not.

To access if you are in same package you can access directly, but if you are in another package then you can create an object of the class.

Default: It is accessible in the same package from any of the class of package.

To access you can create an object of the class. But you can not access this variable outside of the package.

Protected: you can access variables in same package as well as subclass in any other package. so basically it is default + Inherited behavior.

To access protected field defined in base class you can create object of child class.

Private: it can be access in same class.

In non-static methods you can access directly because of this reference (also in constructors)but to access in static methods you need to create object of the class.

Here's a better version of the table. (Future proof with a column for modules.)

Explanations

A private member is only accessible within the same class as it is declared.
A member with no access modifier is only accessible within classes in the same package.
A protected member is accessible within all classes in the same package and within subclasses in other packages.
A public member is accessible to all classes (unless it resides in a module that does not export the package it is declared in).

Which modifier to choose?

Access modifiers is a tool to help you to prevent accidentally breaking encapsulation^(*). Ask yourself if you intend the member to be something that's internal to the class, package, class hierarchy or not internal at all, and choose access level accordingly.

Examples:

A field long internalCounter should probably be private since it's mutable and an implementation detail.
A class that should only be instantiated in a factory class (in the same package) should have a package restricted constructor, since it shouldn't be possible to call it directly from outside the package.
An internal void beforeRender() method called right before rendering and used as a hook in subclasses should be protected.
A void saveGame(File dst) method which is called from the GUI code should be public.

^{(*) What is Encapsulation exactly?}

Access modifiers in Java.

Java access modifiers are used to provide access control in Java.

1. Default:

Accessible to the classes in the same package only.

For example,

// Saved in file A.java
package pack;

class A{
  void msg(){System.out.println("Hello");}
}

// Saved in file B.java
package mypack;
import pack.*;

class B{
  public static void main(String args[]){
   A obj = new A(); // Compile Time Error
   obj.msg(); // Compile Time Error
  }
}

This access is more restricted than public and protected, but less restricted than private.

2. Public

Can be accessed from anywhere. (Global Access)

For example,

// Saved in file A.java

package pack;
public class A{
  public void msg(){System.out.println("Hello");}
}

// Saved in file B.java

package mypack;
import pack.*;

class B{
  public static void main(String args[]){
    A obj = new A();
    obj.msg();
  }
}

Output:Hello

3. Private

Accessible only inside the same class.

If you try to access private members on one class in another will throw compile error. For example,

class A{
  private int data = 40;
  private void msg(){System.out.println("Hello java");}
}

public class Simple{
  public static void main(String args[]){
    A obj = new A();
    System.out.println(obj.data); // Compile Time Error
    obj.msg(); // Compile Time Error
  }
}

4. Protected

Accessible only to the classes in the same package and to the subclasses

For example,

// Saved in file A.java
package pack;
public class A{
  protected void msg(){System.out.println("Hello");}
}

// Saved in file B.java
package mypack;
import pack.*;

class B extends A{
  public static void main(String args[]){
    B obj = new B();
    obj.msg();
  }
}

Output: Hello

在 Java 中，public、 protected、 package-private 和 private 之间有什么区别？

Private

Package Private

Protected

Public

Published

Summary

What access specifiers apply to

Order

Notes

Inner classes

Private

Protected

Public

Default -No keyword:

Related Answers

References links

Explanations

Which modifier to choose?