Another Inheritance Question, please help.

Question

Below is a setup of two packages and three classes:
package com.foo.package1
* This is the main superclass.
public class SuperClass extends Object {
    public SuperClass () {
    protected getFoo() {
        return "foo";
}here is the second package:
package com.foo.package2
import com.foo.package1.SuperClass;
* This class extends SuperClass. Obviously, I removed
* all methods for brevity.
public class SubClass extends SuperClass {
    public SubClass () {
        super();
* This class extends SubClass. A method here is supposed to
* create an instance of the SuperClass and call a method on it.
* In this case, {SuperClass#getFoo()} is called.
public class SubSubClass extends SubClass {
    public SubSubClass () {
        super();
    public void method() {
        SubClass sc = new SubClass();
        System.out.println (
                sc.getFoo());
}Now why do I get a compile exception "getFoo() has protected access in com.foo.package1.SuperClass"? Should that be the case?
Thanks in advance.
Georg.

Answer 1

It isn't a bug. Saying that protected members of a class are accessible from subclasses is not exactly true.
From the JLS: 6.6.2 Details on protected Access
A protected member or constructor of an object may be accessed from outside the package in which it is declared only by code that is responsible for the implementation of that object.
SubSubClass is not responsible for the implementation of SuperClass. So basically, a class can only have access to protected members defined in a superclass if either:
a) it is in the same package
- or -
b) the type of the reference used to access those members is that class, or one of it's subclasses.