Hi Deepak,
Syntax-wise, the most important thing you need to understand regarding
strictfp is this: the
strictfp modifier applies only to the single immediate class or method implementation that it appears with. It is not part of a method's signature, and so it is
not automatically propagated to an overriding method. A
strictfp method can override a non-
strictfp method, and vice versa. (Note that the same freedom applies to
synchronized methods.) That's why it doesn't make sense to use the
strictfp modifier (or, for that matter,
synchronized) for abstract methods.
On to your questions:
a) Does strictfp gets applied to abstract methods in a abstract class?
No.
strictfp is intended to modify the behavior of a single specific implementation, so it doesn't make sense to talk about a
strictfp abstract method.
b) Once when a concrete class extends this abstract class and implement the abstract methods, will strictfp be propograted to these methods?
Nope.
c) We know that strictfp cannot be applied to a abstract method For ex
abstract strictfp void test(); is illegal. Then how come strictfp can be applied to an interfact? For example
strictfp abstract interface TestInter {} is legal. Yeah abstract keyword is optional here.
You may be surprised to learn this dark secret of
Java: interfaces are allowed to contain nested classes. Therefore, when you apply the
strictfp modifier to an interface, this means that you want all of its nested classes to be
strictfp.
However, there is rarely--if ever at all--a good reason to design an interface containing a nested class, especially now that Java has enums. So please try to somehow forget that you ever knew about this language 'feature'.
d) The question in b, Will this apply to the class implementing strictfp method.
Nope. An overriding method (or its class) must explicitly specify that it is
strictfp, even if the method it overrides is
strictfp.
[ November 23, 2007: Message edited by: Kelvin Lim ]
