encapsulating static variables

[Krep Lock]

i'd like to encapsulate, but the following code makes the compiler unhappy:

class Player {
private static int playerCount = 0;
private String name;
public Player(String n) {
name = n;
playerCount++;
}
}

public class PlayerTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
Player one = new Player("numba ONE!");
System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
}
}

taking private off of the static var "fixes" everything, but doesn't that mean the static can be updated by any old method outside the class? what am i missing here?

[Ramen Chatterjee]

Hi

You need to think about what the access modifiers (like private) mean. Why are these a good idea, when might you want to use them? You should also check out the behaviour when it comes to inheritance.

Often, people talk about making class members private, to force access through methods. This serves 2 purposes - as the author of the access method(s), you can add rules, validation, etc., you can also protect the user of the method from the actual type you use to store the data in (this means you could change the member type without affecting callers. A godd example would be the Collections classes. Do you know (or care) if the underlying store is an array, or some other object?

So thats a good reason for things being private, but there are times when that wouldn't make sense - Math.PI will always be the same value so thers no point hiding it!

Lastly, if you dont want your member to change, make it final and intialise it before anyone else can.

hope this helps

Ramen

[Marilyn de Queiroz]

[I]i'd like to encapsulate, but the following code makes the compiler unhappy:

class Player {
private static int playerCount = 0;
private String name;
public Player(String n) {
name = n;
playerCount++;
}
}
 
public class PlayerTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
Player one = new Player("numba ONE!");
System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
}
}

taking private off of the static var "fixes" everything, but doesn't that mean the static can be updated by any old method outside the class? what am i missing here? [/i]

1) If you use "code" tags rather than "quote" tags, you can maintain the formatting of your code, thus making it easier to read.
2) If you make playerCount private, nobody outside of the Player class can see it, including the main() method of the PlayerTest class. So you have choices. You can change the access of the variable to default, you can use a "getter" method (getPlayerCount), or maybe call a method in the Player class called "printCount()" or something like that.

[Stuart Ash]

It might be a good idea to have a PlayerFactory, a singleton class that creates Player instances and keeps count of them.

That way, you can more vividly see the encapsulation process:
a. a player's attribute is encapsulated in the Player class
b. the player objects' creation and count is encapsulated in the Factory class.

cheers.

[Pratibha Malhotra]

taking private off of the static var "fixes" everything, but doesn't that mean the static can be updated by any old method outside the class? what am i missing here?

You can verywell declare a static variable Private.
The problem here is you are trying to access a private variable (playerCount) in main methods(ie outside your class). You would have got same error even if you would have used an instance variable.

so the compile time error is cox of private access-specifier and not static modifier

     
class Player 
{
private static int playerCount = 0;
private String name;
public Player(String n) 
{name = n;
playerCount++;
System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
}
}
 
public class PlayerTest 
{public static void main(String[] args) 
{//System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
Player one = new Player("numba ONE!");
//System.out.println(Player.playerCount);
}
}

[Krep Lock]

thanks for the answers. what really spurred the post was that the "getter" method i tried wasn't working. i soon realised that needed to be a static method and all seems to be working as expected.