access modifiers in Java [duplicate]

Question

This question already has answers here:

What is the difference between public, protected, package-private and private in Java? (29 answers)

Closed 8 years ago.

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Edited to fix being marked as duplicate or to be more clear on why it appears to be a duplicate. At the time I did not know that package and default where the same thus reason for this post.

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now I going through exam questions in preparation for my Java exam and I have a question asking me to explain access modifiers and its asking me about a Package modifier.

I can find info on private, Protected, public and default but can't find anything on Package.

can someone please give me an answer or link me to an article about it?

Answer 1

package-private is not a real modifier. You can't type package-private and get the system to recognize it as an access modifier. It's really the default, made by not including any other modifiers.

It means that the given members can only be accessed in the same package.

For example, com.hexafraction.Cow can access a member with default modifiers(none actually) in com.hexafraction.Dog, but com.foo.Crow can't access that member as it's not in the same pacakge.

In this example, the following makes up Cow:

pacakge com.hexafraction;
class Cow{
    void moo(){ //no public, protected, or private modifier
        System.out.println("moo!");
    }
}

Edit for the future: In Java 8, package will supposedly be the modifier needed for this. Literally typing default will still not apply here.

Answer 2

The so-called "package-private" access level is what occurs without a modifier such as private, protected, or public.

Example:

public class Test {
    int test;  // package-private
}

Anything in the same package, even an unrelated class, can access it, but other classes (even subclasses of the class) outside of the package cannot access it.

This link to the Java tutorial on the subject should help.