Android™ How to Program, Second Edition

G.3. protected Members

In this section, we introduce access modifier protected. Using protected access offers an intermediate level of access between public and private. A superclass’s protected members can be accessed by the class, by members of its subclasses and by members of other classes in the same package—protected members also have package access.

All public and protected superclass members retain their original access modifier when they become members of the subclass—public members of the superclass become public members of the subclass, and protected members of the superclass become protected members of the subclass. A superclass’s private members are not accessible outside the class itself. Rather, they’re hidden in its subclasses ...