Re: Declaring members for Interfaces

From:
vamsee.maha@gmail.com
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:19:23 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<e9159185-5a36-423d-bfd7-bb3568c34390@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 23, 12:59 pm, Jan Thom=E4 <k...@insomnia-hq.de> wrote:

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:54:28 -0700 (PDT) vamsee.m...@gmail.com wrote:

Can anyone tell me reason:

Why the syntax for declaring members in interfaces are declared as
constants.


Well the usual idea is that you dont need to qualify your constants if you=

put them into an interface. Assume this:

class MyConstants {

 public static String MY_STRING = "foo";

}

Now if you want to use this in a class of yours:

class MyWindow extends JFrame {

   private void buildUI() {
    ...

     field.setText(MyConstants.MY_STRING);
...
   }

}

If you declare the constants in an interface:

interface MyConstants {
 public static String MY_STRING = "foo";

}

you can do

class MyWindow extends JFrame implements MyConstants {
  private void buildUI() {
    ...

     field.setText(MY_STRING);
...
   }

}

since you inherited the constants from the interface. Note however, that
this is considered bad style by many people, as you can get into trouble
when you have the same constant name in different interfaces. Also you are=

misusing the idea of interfaces for saving some typing, which can be
considered a hack. The preferred way of doing this in Java 1.5 or above is=

using static imports:

import static MyConstants.*;
class MyWindow extends JFrame {
  private void buildUI() {
    ...

     field.setText(MY_STRING);
...
   }

}

Jan


The explanation says for declaring constants we use members of
interfaces. It also says it may not be best way of declaring
constants. I feel there is one important reason why we declare members
of interfaces as constants

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