How do you call a field?

Question

Good morning everyone,
I'm trying to work with the BufferedInputStream (work from friday) and i went to the website:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/io/BufferedInputStream.html#BufferedInputStream(java.io.InputStream)
at that website they have a "field summary" and i want to use the buf array (cause it says thats where the data is stored) but i cant figure out the coding to put it in my project. how do you call a field?

Answer 1

Fr. Murderess,
a) The short answer is "no". Only public methods and fields can be accessed that way.
b) If getting the "buf" field is of paramount importance to you, declare a class like this:
public class MyBufferedInputStream extends BufferedInputStream {
    public MyBufferedInputStream(InputStream in) { super(in); }
    public MyBufferedInputStream(InputStream in, int size) { super(in, size); }
    public byte[] getBuf() { return buf; }
    public void setBuf(byte[] newBuf) { buf = newBuf; }
}to get and set the "buf" field. As you can see by reading the source code of BufferedInputStream, the other fields (count, pos and markpos) are needed too, and you will need to provide the getters and setters for the other fields.
It's better not to "fiddle" with the protected fields of BufferedInputStream. Simply use BufferedInputStream "as is", and don't bother about the "buf" field.
I think that you will need to tinker only with the size of the buffer (maybe to cache more data inside), but it is available in the second constructor of BufferedInputStream (InputStream in, int size).