[ACCEPTED]-What is the difference between access specifiers and access modifiers?-access-specifier
"access modifier" is the official 5 term for private, protected and public used in the Java language specification. "access 4 specifier" is used synonymously in 3 the Java API doc, but this is the first time I've noticed 2 that. It's probably better to stick with 1 the JLS term.
Referring to the Sun Java Docs they both 1 seem to be the same:
Access Modifier- Search for
access specifieron this page.
The term Access specifier used by c++ programmers not in 4 java. In java Officially we use Access Modifier.
For example: when 3 we declare a class with private, static 2 the compiler clearly shows the error message 1 as follows:
Java has basically 2 types of Modifiers:
- java access modifiers
- java non-access modifiers
Java 2 access modifiers and Java access specifiers 1 are the same thing, which are public, private, protected.
In some older languages public, private, protected 13 and default like C++ are considered as access 12 specifiers and everything else is considered 11 as access modifier but in Java there is 10 no terminology for specifier, everything 9 is by default considered as modifier only. So 8 public, private, protected, default, final, abstract, static, strictfp, synchronized, native, transient 7 and volatile are all modifiers only.
Simple 6 test for it is when we compile the following 5 code
private class Test{ }
we will get compile 4 time error saying that modifier private 3 not allowed here. This is true for other 2 modifiers also. Maybe java compiler (javac) sees 1 everything as a "modifier" only.
There is nothing known as "Access specifiers" in java, there are only Access modifiers in java
The misconception is from languages like 6 C++ where public, private, protected, default 5 are considered as Access specifiers and 4 remaining (static, final, etc) are considered 3 as access modifiers
Following is the proof 2 as compiler says "modifier private 1 not allowed here" i.e. compiler said modifier and not specifier
According to me, yes, both terms refer to 1 the same thing and are used interchangeably.
That JDI reference is the only place I have 6 ever seen the term 'access specifier' used 5 in a Java specification. Even there, public/protected/private/package 4 are also called 'modifiers'. There's really 3 no reason to ever use the term 'access specifier' in 2 Java, it is clearly just a mistake on one 1 page out of many thousands.
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