Question

I just read in a document that “A static method can call only other static methods and can not call a non-static method from it”. But when I tried to test it I think saw something different.

I have a class C which is described below

import pckage1.*;

public class C
{

public static void main(String par[])
{       
}
public static void cc() 
{
    A ob = new A();
    ob.accessA(0);      
}   

}

where class A is

package pckage1;

public class A 
{
public A() 
{
}
public void accessA(int x)
{   
}

}

Now here from cc STATIC method in class C, a NON STATIC method accessA() is called. How could that be possible if the statement about static method is true?

Answer 1

A static method can call only other static methods and can not call a non-static method from it

That’s wrong.

Static methods can call non-static methods as long as they have objects to call the methods on (as you discovered in your code snippet). How else would a non-static method ever be called?

You can’t do nonStaticFoo() from a static method, since it is interpreted as this.nonStaticFoo() and since there is no this available in a static method.

Very similar question from earlier today:

• Static method access to non-static constructor?