Question

The private modifier specifies that the member can only be accessed in its own class. But am I able to access it using a public method that get inherited from base class. Can someone explain me why? Does this mean object of Child class contain a member called b?

Here’s the code:

package a;

public class Base {
    private int b;

    public int getB() {
        return b;
    }

    public void exposeB() {
        System.out.println(getB());
    }

    public Base(int b) {
        this.b = b;

    }
}

package b;

public class Child extends Base {

    Child(int b) {
        super(b);
    }

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Child b = new Child(2);
        // Prints  2
        System.out.println("Accessing private base variable" + b.getB());
    }
}

Answer 1

you are not accessing the private variable in your super class directly. you are implementing the concept of Encapsulation. you are using the public getter method(in this case getB()) to make your private data accesed by other classes. thus, you can access private variable b through public getter but you never cant access b directly on its instace from another/subclass