Compile time constants???

[Swapna Gouri Kalanidhi]

Can anyone explain me what compile time constants are???

Thanks in advance...!

[Shaan Shar]

According to my knowledge Compile Time Constants
or just plain compile constants, Officially known as "compile-time constant expressions" these are static finals whose value is known at compile time. e.g.

// constants known at compile time
static final int ARMS = 2;
static final int LIMBS = ARMS * 2;

These can be used as switch case labels, subject, of course, to the usual byte, short, char and int-only restriction.

So conclusion is Compile time constants are evaluated at compile time, and treated as if they were literals, inlined in the code.

Please check this discussion for more examples

JAVARANCH: Compile Time Constants

Hope it helps you. Let me know for any concerns.
[ May 13, 2008: Message edited by: Ankur Sharma ]

[Swapna Gouri Kalanidhi]

Hi Ankur
Thank you for the reply & the link that you have provided is quite helpful. But why do we call them as compile-time constants & not runtime constants? My question is after the code gets compiled, does the constant vanish at runtime ? Got my question ???

Thank you