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Accessing Instance Variables and Methods

Instance variables and methods in Java classes are accessed through objects of those classes. To access an instance variable, an object must first be created using the class constructor, then the variable can be accessed by objectName.variableName. Methods are accessed in the same way using objectName.methodName(). The example shows creating a Puppy object, setting its age using the setAge() method, getting its age with getAge(), and accessing the puppyAge variable directly through the object.

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78 views3 pages

Accessing Instance Variables and Methods

Instance variables and methods in Java classes are accessed through objects of those classes. To access an instance variable, an object must first be created using the class constructor, then the variable can be accessed by objectName.variableName. Methods are accessed in the same way using objectName.methodName(). The example shows creating a Puppy object, setting its age using the setAge() method, getting its age with getAge(), and accessing the puppyAge variable directly through the object.

Uploaded by

Nazeeh Rzeqat
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Accessing Instance Variables and Methods

Instance variables and methods are accessed via created objects. To access an
instance variable, following is the fully qualified path −
/* First create an object */
ObjectReference = new Constructor();

/* Now call a variable as follows */


ObjectReference.variableName;

/* Now you can call a class method as follows */


ObjectReference.MethodName();

Example
This example explains how to access instance variables and methods of a
class.
Live Demo

public class Puppy {


int puppyAge;

public Puppy(String name) {


// This constructor has one parameter, name.
System.out.println("Name chosen is :" + name );
}

public void setAge( int age ) {


puppyAge = age;
}

public int getAge( ) {


System.out.println("Puppy's age is :" + puppyAge );
return puppyAge;
}

public static void main(String []args) {


/* Object creation */
Puppy myPuppy = new Puppy( "tommy" );

/* Call class method to set puppy's age */


myPuppy.setAge( 2 );

/* Call another class method to get puppy's age */


myPuppy.getAge( );
/* You can access instance variable as follows as well
*/
System.out.println("Variable Value :" + myPuppy.puppyAge
);
}
}

If we compile and run the above program, then it will produce the following result
−
Output
Name chosen is :tommy
Puppy's age is :2
Variable Value :2

Source File Declaration Rules


As the last part of this section, let's now look into the source file declaration
rules. These rules are essential when declaring classes, import statements
and package statements in a source file.
 There can be only one public class per source file.
 A source file can have multiple non-public classes.
 The public class name should be the name of the source file as well which
should be appended by .java at the end. For example: the class name
is public class Employee{} then the source file should be as
Employee.java.
 If the class is defined inside a package, then the package statement
should be the first statement in the source file.
 If import statements are present, then they must be written between the
package statement and the class declaration. If there are no package
statements, then the import statement should be the first line in the
source file.
 Import and package statements will imply to all the classes present in the
source file. It is not possible to declare different import and/or package
statements to different classes in the source file.
Classes have several access levels and there are different types of classes;
abstract classes, final classes, etc. We will be explaining about all these in the
access modifiers chapter.
Apart from the above mentioned types of classes, Java also has some special
classes called Inner classes and Anonymous classes.

Java Package
In simple words, it is a way of categorizing the classes and interfaces. When
developing applications in Java, hundreds of classes and interfaces will be
written, therefore categorizing these classes is a must as well as makes life
much easier.

Import Statements
In Java if a fully qualified name, which includes the package and the class name
is given, then the compiler can easily locate the source code or classes. Import
statement is a way of giving the proper location for the compiler to find that
particular class.
For example, the following line would ask the compiler to load all the classes
available in directory java_installation/java/io −

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