Java Notes

Static/Class methods

There are two types of methods.

• Instance methods are associated with an object and use the instance variables of that object. This is the default.
• Static methods use no instance variables of any object of the class they are defined in. If you define a method to be static, you will be given a rude message by the compiler if you try to access any instance variables. You can access static variables, but except for constants, this is unusual. Static methods typically take all they data from parameters and compute something from those parameters, with no reference to variables. This is typical of methods which do some kind of generic calculation. A good example of this are the many utility methods in the predefined Math class. (See Math and java.util.Random).

Qualifying a static call

From outside the defining class, an instance method is called by prefixing it with an object, which is then passed as an implicit parameter to the instance method, eg, inputTF.setText("");

A static method is called by prefixing it with a class name, eg, Math.max(i,j);. Curiously, it can also be qualified with an object, which will be ignored, but the class of the object will be used.

Example

Here is a typical static method.

class MyUtils {
    . . .
    //================================================= mean
    public static double mean(int[] p) {
        int sum = 0;  // sum of all the elements
        for (int i=0; i<p.length; i++) {
            sum += p[i];
        }
        return ((double)sum) / p.length;
    }//endmethod mean
    . . .
}

The only data this method uses or changes is from parameters (or local variables of course).

Why declare a method static

The above mean() method would work just as well if it wasn't declared static, as long as it was called from within the same class. If called from outside the class and it wasn't declared static, it would have to be qualified (us