Packages

Introduction#

package in java is used to group class and interfaces. This helps developer to avoid conflict when there are huge numbers of classes. If we use this package the classes we can create a class/interface with same name in different packages.

By using packages we can import the piece of again in another class.

There many built in packages in java like

1.java.util 2.java.lang 3.java.io

We can define our own user defined packages.

Remarks#

Packages provide access protection.

package statement must be first line of source code. There can only be one package in one source file.

With help of packages conflict between different modules can be avoided.

Using Packages to create classes with the same name

First Test.class:

package foo.bar

public class Test {

}

Also Test.class in another package

package foo.bar.baz

public class Test {

}

The above is fine because the two classes exist in different packages.

Using Package Protected Scope

In Java if you don’t provide an access modifier the default scope for variables is package-protected level. This means that classes can access the variables of other classes within the same package as if those variables were publicly available.

package foo.bar

public class ExampleClass {
    double exampleNumber;
    String exampleString;

    public ExampleClass() {
        exampleNumber = 3;
        exampleString = "Test String";
    }
    //No getters or setters
}

package foo.bar

public class AnotherClass {
    ExampleClass clazz = new ExampleClass();

    System.out.println("Example Number: " + clazz.exampleNumber);
    //Prints Example Number: 3
    System.out.println("Example String: " + clazz.exampleString);
    //Prints Example String: Test String
}

This method will not work for a class in another package:

package baz.foo

public class ThisShouldNotWork {
    ExampleClass clazz = new ExampleClass();

    System.out.println("Example Number: " + clazz.exampleNumber);
    //Throws an exception
    System.out.println("Example String: " + clazz.exampleString);
    //Throws an exception
}