Differentiate between public and private modifiers for members of a class.

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Answer:

Here’s a comparison between the public and private access modifiers in the context of class members in Java:

Aspect Public Modifier Private Modifier
Accessibility Members declared as public can be accessed from anywhere in the program, including other classes and packages. Members declared as private can only be accessed within the class where they are declared. Other classes cannot access these members directly.
Visibility The public members are visible to all classes and objects. The private members are hidden from other classes and are only visible within the class they are declared in.
Use Case public is used when you want other classes to have access to a class's members. This is often used for methods that provide necessary functionality to other classes. private is used to encapsulate the internal state and implementation of a class. It helps in hiding data and controlling access to the internal workings of a class.
Encapsulation Using public can lead to less encapsulation as it exposes class members to the outside world. private promotes encapsulation by keeping the class's internal state and implementation hidden from other classes.
Inheritance public members of a class are accessible in subclasses, allowing for more flexible inheritance. private members are not accessible in subclasses, even though they can be inherited. They can only be accessed via public or protected methods in the parent class. 

public class Example {
    // Public member: Accessible from anywhere
    public int publicValue = 10;

    // Private member: Accessible only within this class
    private int privateValue = 20;

    public void showValues() {
        System.out.println("Public Value: " + publicValue);
        System.out.println("Private Value: " + privateValue);
    }
}

In the above example:

  • publicValue can be accessed from any other class.
  • privateValue can only be accessed within the Example class itself.

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