Java Glossary : class

Java definitions: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You are here : home : Java Glossary : C words : class.

class: A class in Java is much like one in C++. It consists of a group of related methods and variables lumped together under one name. The static class variables are for class-as-a-whole data. They are allocated only once at load time and are shared by all instances of objects of that class. The instance variables, are allocated inside each object of that class. Static class methods work when there is no current object. They can only reference static class variables and static methods, unless of course they allocate an object and then use explicit references to the instance variables. Instance methods work by default on the fields of the current this object. There can be only one public class in each source file. If your class was called HelloWorld the name of the source file must be precisely HelloWorld.java with every letter exactly matching even in case. In Java there is no such thing as a method or variable that does not belong to some class. Java comes with a builtin set of classes arranged in a class hierarchy.
Class.forName: also how to find a class given a class's name and how to find out an object's class ¤ instance ¤ static

home	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[24.87.56.253]
	Your IP:[80.134.30.163]
	You are visitor number 2349.
	Please send errors, omissions and suggestions
	to improve this page to Roedy Green.
	You can get a fresh copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive mirror:
	http://mindprod.com/jgloss/class.html	J:\mindprod\jgloss\class.html