[java] What is the default access specifier in Java?

I just started reading a Java book and wondered; which access specifier is the default one, if none is specified?

Here is a quote about package level visibility from an interview with James Gosling, the creator of Java:

Bill Venners: Java has four access levels. The default is package. I have always wondered if making package access default was convenient because the three keywords that people from C++ already knew about were private, protected, and public. Or if you had some particular reason that you felt package access should be the default.

James Gosling: A package is generally a set of things that are kind of written together. So generically I could have done one of two things. One was force you always to put in a keyword that gives you the domain. Or I could have had a default value. And then the question is, what makes a sensible default? And I tend to go for what is the least dangerous thing.

So public would have been a really bad thing to make the default. Private would probably have been a bad thing to make a default, if only because people actually don't write private methods that often. And same thing with protected. And in looking at a bunch of code that I had, I decided that the most common thing that was reasonably safe was in the package. And C++ didn't have a keyword for that, because they didn't have a notion of packages.

But I liked it rather than the friends notion, because with friends you kind of have to enumerate who all of your friends are, and so if you add a new class to a package, then you generally end up having to go to all of the classes in that package and update their friends, which I had always found to be a complete pain in the butt.

But the friends list itself causes sort of a versioning problem. And so there was this notion of a friendly class. And the nice thing that I was making that the default -- I'll solve the problem so what should the keyword be?

For a while there actually was a friendly keyword. But because all the others start with "P," it was "phriendly" with a "PH." But that was only in there for maybe a day.

http://www.artima.com/intv/gosling2P.html

There is an access modifier called "default" in JAVA, which allows direct instance creation of that entity only within that package.

Here is a useful link:

Java Access Modifiers/Specifiers

The default visibility (no keyword) is package which means that it will be available to every class that is located in the same package.

Interesting side note is that protected doesn't limit visibility to the subclasses but also to the other classes in the same package

The default specifier depends upon context.

For classes, and interface declarations, the default is package private. This falls between protected and private, allowing only classes in the same package access. (protected is like this, but also allowing access to subclasses outside of the package.)

class MyClass   // package private
{
   int field;    // package private field

   void calc() {  // package private method

   }
}

For interface members (fields and methods), the default access is public. But note that the interface declaration itself defaults to package private.

interface MyInterface  // package private
{
   int field1;         // static final public

   void method1();     // public abstract
}

If we then have the declaration

public interface MyInterface2 extends MyInterface
{

}

Classes using MyInterface2 can then see field1 and method1 from the super interface, because they are public, even though they cannot see the declaration of MyInterface itself.

If no access specifier is given, it's package-level access (there is no explicit specifier for this) for classes and class members. Interface methods are implicitly public.

default is a keyword that is used as an access modifier for methods and variables.
Using this access modifier will make your class, variable, method or constructor acessible from own class or package, it will be also is set if no access modifier is present.

  Access Levels
    Modifier    Class   Package Subclass  EveryWhere
    public        Y        Y       Y         Y
    protected     Y        Y       Y         N
    default       Y        Y       N         N
    private       Y        N       N         N

if you use a default in a interface you will be able to implement a method there like this exemple

public interface Computer {    
    default void Start() {
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Error");
    }    
}

However it will only works from the 8 Java version

Official Documentation

Access Modifiers in Java

the default access specifier is package.Classes can access the members of other classes in the same package.but outside the package it appears as private

See here for more details. The default is none of private/public/protected, but a completely different access specification. It's not widely used, and I prefer to be much more specific in my access definitions.

Update Java 8 usage of default keyword: As many others have noted The default visibility (no keyword)

the field will be accessible from inside the same package to which the class belongs.

Not to be confused with the new Java 8 feature (Default Methods) that allows an interface to provide an implementation when its labeled with the default keyword.

See: Access modifiers

It depends on what the thing is.

• Top-level types (that is, classes, enums, interfaces, and annotation types not declared inside another type) are package-private by default. (JLS §6.6.1)

• In classes, all members (that means fields, methods, and nested type declarations) and constructors are package-private by default. (JLS §6.6.1)

  • When a class has no explicitly declared constructor, the compiler inserts a default zero-argument constructor which has the same access specifier as the class. (JLS §8.8.9) The default constructor is commonly misstated as always being public, but in rare cases that's not equivalent.

• In enums, constructors are private by default. Indeed, enum contructors must be private, and it is an error to specify them as public or protected. Enum constants are always public, and do not permit any access specifier. Other members of enums are package-private by default. (JLS §8.9)

• In interfaces and annotation types, all members (again, that means fields, methods, and nested type declarations) are public by default. Indeed, members of interfaces and annotation types must be public, and it is an error to specify them as private or protected. (JLS §9.3 to 9.5)

• Local classes are named classes declared inside a method, constructor, or initializer block. They are scoped to the {..} block in which they are declared and do not permit any access specifier. (JLS §14.3) Using reflection, you can instantiate local classes from elsewhere, and they are package-private, although I'm not sure if that detail is in the JLS.

• Anonymous classes are custom classes created with new which specify a class body directly in the expression. (JLS §15.9.5) Their syntax does not permit any access specifier. Using reflection, you can instantiate anonymous classes from elsewhere, and both they and their generated constructors are are package-private, although I'm not sure if that detail is in the JLS.

• Instance and static initializer blocks do not have access specifiers at the language level (JLS §8.6 & 8.7), but static initializer blocks are implemented as a method named <clinit> (JVMS §2.9), so the method must, internally, have some access specifier. I examined classes compiled by javac and by Eclipse's compiler using a hex editor and found that both generate the method as package-private. However, you can't call <clinit>() within the language because the < and > characters are invalid in a method name, and the reflection methods are hardwired to deny its existence, so effectively its access specifier is no access. The method can only be called by the VM, during class initialization. Instance initializer blocks are not compiled as separate methods; their code is copied into each constructor, so they can't be accessed individually, even by reflection.

First of all let me say one thing there is no such term as "Access specifier" in java. We should call everything as "Modifiers". As we know that final, static, synchronised, volatile.... are called as modifiers, even Public, private, protected, default, abstract should also be called as modifiers . Default is such a modifiers where physical existence is not there but no modifiers is placed then it should be treated as default modifiers.

To justify this take one example:

public class Simple{  
    public static void main(String args[]){  
     System.out.println("Hello Java");  
    }  
}  

Output will be: Hello Java

Now change public to private and see what compiler error you get: It says "Modifier private is not allowed here" What conclusion is someone can be wrong or some tutorial can be wrong but compiler cannot be wrong. So we can say there is no term access specifier in java everything is modifiers.