8.3.1

Field Modifiers

CLASSES

( 6.3) the entire body of the class declaration in which it is declared. More than

one field may be declared in a single field declaration by using more than one

declarator; the

FieldModifiers

 and

Type

 apply to all the declarators in the declara 

tion. Variable declarations involving array types are discussed in  10.2.

It is a compile time error for the body of a class declaration to contain decla 

rations of two fields with the same name. Methods and fields may have the same

name, since they are used in different contexts and are disambiguated by the dif 

ferent lookup procedures ( 6.5).

If the class declares a field with a certain name, then the declaration of that

field is said to

hide

 ( 6.3.1) any and all accessible declarations of fields with the

same name in the superclasses and superinterfaces of the class.

If a field declaration hides the declaration of another field, the two fields need

not have the same type.

A class inherits from its direct superclass and direct superinterfaces all the

fields of the superclass and superinterfaces that are both accessible to code in the

class and not hidden by a declaration in the class.

It is possible for a class to inherit more than one field with the same name

( 8.3.3.3). Such a situation does not in itself cause a compile time error. However,

any attempt within the body of the class to refer to any such field by its simple

name will result in a compile time error, because such a reference is ambiguous.

There might be several paths by which the same field declaration might be

inherited from an interface. In such a situation, the field is considered to be inher 

ited only once, and it may be referred to by its simple name without ambiguity.

A hidden field can be accessed by using a qualified name (if it is

static

) or

by using a field access expression ( 15.10) that contains the keyword

super

 or a

cast to a superclass type. See  15.10.2 for discussion and an example.

8.3.1   Field Modifiers

FieldModifiers:

FieldModifier

FieldModifiers FieldModifier

FieldModifier: one of

public protected private

final static transient volatile

The access modifiers

public

,

protected

, and

private

 are discussed in  6.6. A

compile time error occurs if the same modifier appears more than once in a field

declaration, or if a field declaration has more than one of the access modifiers

public

,

protected

, and

private

. If two or more (distinct) field modifiers

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