What exactly is an array modifier?

[Jessica Stensrud]

Thanks in advance. I'm being nitpicked and my nitpicker says if I "just" Google "modifier", I should be able to figure out what the nitpick means:

public class Say
{
static String numberNameOnes[] =
you missed a previous nitpick. Modifiers.
{
"Zero" , "One" , "Two" , "Three" , "Four", "Five", "Six", "Seven", "Eight", "Nine"

means. I asked if it was my long name numberNameOnes[], the camel casing or what. I was told to look it up, but there is no index listing ANYWHERE IN ANY BOOK and when I Google "modifiers," I get a zillion hits that don't look like ANYTHING I am looking for.
When I got the Say assignment, I looked at the instructions and I followed them to a "T." Now I feel I am getting absolutely nowhere.
Please help!!

[Ulf Dittmer]

When in doubt, consult the Oracle Java Tutorial Or search for "Java modifiers".

This may help: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html

[Jessica Stensrud]

Ok - so a modifier is public, static, private, etc. but I used the example program as the basis of my program and the class was public and the arrays were static in that example.
Ok - go ahead and make fun of me for using an example to create my program.

So how am I supposed to know what my nitpicker wants me to change the modifiers to and why should I change them?
The program works with things the way they are.
I KNOW I'm trying to learn a lot of ins and outs of Java, but . . . am I supposed to change the static String numberNameOnes[] = to public String numberNameOnes[] = when I didn't understand why it was set to static to begin with??
erg

[Ulf Dittmer]

I'm not sure what the exact requirements of the nitpicking are, but it's good practice not to make things static unless there's a good reason for it, and to restrict visibility as much as possible.

[Steve Kedzie]

Maybe this will help: does numberNameOnes[] need to be visible to all objects external to class Say? Or, should it only be accessible internally to class Say? As far as static is concerned: will any objects of class Say use individual intstances of numberNameOnes[]? Or, will all objects of class Say use the same data contained in numberNameOnes[] everytime? If you can answer these questions, it may help with understanding which access modifiers to use in a class.

Steve

[Jessica Stensrud]

Thanks, Steve, I'll have to chew on that for a while! It is helping me wrap my head around the definition of the various array modifiers and what they do.