Help on Static property

[sarathy]

HI all,

I have a small doubt regarding statics in JAVA. Consider the following
code.

public Class A
{
int x=10;

void printX()
{
System.out.println ("x is :" + x);
}
public static void main()
{
printX();
}

}

This results in a Compiler error, since the compiler detects that the
non-static ( uses instance variables) method printX() is used in static
context (static void main()). This is OK.

Using the same concept the following code must also report a Compiler
error. But it works

public Class A
{
int x=10;

void printX()
{
System.out.println ("x is :" + x);
}
public static void main()
{
Class a = new A();
a.printX(); // works fine ???
}

}

Can anyone please explain how ?

Regards,
Sarathy

[Jesper de Jong]

Originally posted by sarathy:
Using the same concept the following code must also report a Compiler
error. But it works

No, this is not the same. You cannot access instance members (variables or methods) from a static method (such as main(...)), because there is no current instance in a static method.

In your second piece of code, you are creating an instance of class A, and it's perfectly allright to invoke an instance method on that instance.