4.9. Member Accessibility Modifiers

By specifying member accessibility modifiers, a class can control what information is accessible to clients (i.e., other classes). These modifiers help a class to define a contract so that clients know exactly what services are offered by the class.

Accessibility of members can be one of the following:

  • public

  • protected

  • default (also called package accessibility)

  • private

A member has package or default accessibility when no accessibility modifier is specified.

In the following discussion on accessibility modifiers for members of a class, keep in mind that the member accessibility modifier only has meaning if the class (or one of its subclasses) is accessible to the client. Also, note that only one accessibility ...

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