Some Important Modifiers in Java

Introduction

In this article we are going to describe some important modifiers which are used with method data members etc. We also describe separate examples of each modifier. In Java there are many modifiers used for its various purposes. The following list gives all the modifiers. In the following table some of the modifiers are used very commonly in all languages such as public, protected, static, volatile etc. And most of you know about the use of these common modifiers. So now we describe only three of the modifiers; native, transient and volatile.

Java Modifier Name and Description Table

Modifier Name	Used on	Description
public	class interface member	Accessible anywhere
private	member	Accessibilty only in its class (which defines it).
protected	member	Accessibility only within its package and its subclasses
none	class interface member	Accessible only in its package
final	class method field variable	Cannot be subclassed Cannot be overridden and dynamically looked up Cannot change its value. static final fields are compile-time constants. Cannot change its value.
abstract	class interface method	Contains unimplemented methods and cannot be instantiated. All interfaces are abstract. Optional in declarations No body, only signature. The enclosing class is abstract
static	class method field initializer	Make an inner class a top-level class A class method, invoked through the class name. A class field, invoked through the class name  one instance, regardless of class instances created. Run when the class is loaded, rather than when an instance is created.
strictfp	class method field initializer	All methods in the class are implicitly strictfp. All floating-point computation done is strictly conforms to the IEEE 754 standard. All values including intermediate results must be expressed as IEEE float or double values.  It is rarely used.
synchronized	method	For a static method, a lock for the class is acquired before executing the method. For a non-static method, a lock for the specific object instance is acquired.
volatile	field	Accessible by unsynchronized threads, very rarely used.
transient	field	Not be serialized with the object, used with object serializations.
native	member	Accessible only in its class(which defins it).