Java Reference by Smart Soft

Variable Visibility

Two things determine variable visibility:

Where the variable declared
What visibility modifier is used

	Modifier	Declared where	Example	Visible to
local variable	none	Within method body	e	The method in which it is declared
method argument	none	Within a method's argument list	d	The method in which it is declared
private variable	private	Within the class body but outside of any methods	a	All methods in the same class
package variable	none		b	All methods in the same class + all methods in the same package (directory)
public variable	public		c	All methods in all packages everywhere

class MyClass{

  private int a;      //private variable
  int b;              //package variable
  public int c;       //public variable

  void meth1(int d){  //method argument
    int e;            //local variable
  }

}

In general, variables should be declared to be as invisible as possible.