RE: declaring static, final

If you want to make your variable public or private, then it must be an
instance variable of your class, and you cannot declare it within a method.
What you have is, I forget the terminology just now, but it's a temporary
variable whose scope is limited to the block it's declared in.

I'd say that a temporary variable is exactly what you want here.  You're
going to get the parameter from the client, do something, and that's it.
You don't need to save it for future reference.

If you declare it as a static instance variable, then you have one copy of
the variable that all objects of the class share.  So if two clients both
request your servlet at the same time, two objects of your servlet class
will be created.  Having them both use the same copy of FILENAME could lead
to synchronization problems as they both set it and then use it.

A final variable is one that can't be changed; once you've assigned a value
to it, you can't subsequently assign another value to it.  A static final
variable is basically a constant, then.  I don't see the justification for
declaring FILENAME as static final, myself.

PC2

-----Original Message-----
From: Stone, Brad V (TC) [mailto:bvstone@taylorcorp.com]
Sent: February 9, 2001 10:59
To: 'JAVA400-L@midrange.com'
Subject: declaring static, final


One of my "reviewers" told me that I should declare my values that I am
reading into the servlet from a web page as static and final.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do this... the compiler doesn't
like my syntax.

Here's what I have now:

    String FILENAME=request.getParameterValues("filename")[0].trim();

how would I declare FILENAME as static final?

I tried: 
private static final String
FILENAME=request.getParameterValues("filename")[0].trim();

Sorry for a silly syntax question.  It does make sense why I would make it
static, but final, I'm still out on that.

What are the default access level if nothing is specified?  public? 

Brad
+---
| This is the JAVA/400 Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to JAVA400-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to JAVA400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to JAVA400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner: joe@zappie.net
+---