Java, A Beginner's Guide, 5th Edition, 5th Edition

Static Import

Java supports an expanded use of the import keyword. By following import with the keyword static, an import statement can be used to import the static members of a class or interface. This is called static import, and it was added to Java by JDK 5. When using static import, it is possible to refer to static members directly by their names, without having to qualify them with the name of their class. This simplifies and shortens the syntax required to use a static member.

To understand the usefulness of static import, let’s begin with an example that does not use it. The following program computes the solutions to a quadratic equation, which has this form:

ax² + bx + c = 0

The program uses two static methods from Java’s built-in ...