Private,public and static variable

Question

I am just not able to understand the use of declaring the variable as private.Because even if i declare the variable as public ,other user of the same application anyway will never be acess that variable !! Can someone clear my doubt.
Also can some one tell me when can I declare a variable as static...that is ideallly when should i declare a variable as static (and for that matter private and public )
Thanks.
Tha

Answer 1

Hi,
There are some rules for variable declarations:
Only the containing class and its inner classes can access private variables.
Every class can access public variables.
All classes in the same package can access protected variables.
Imagine you're writing a program for archiving all your CD's.
If you want to know how many cd's you have got you simply read the static variable.
public class CD {
private String name, author;
public static int cdCount = 0;
public CD(String name, String author){
//do something to initialize
cdCount++; //Increase the value, because a new CD has been created.
public static int getCDCount(){      //static methods can be accessed without creating instances of classes
return cdCount;
public static void main(String[] args){
CD kravitz = new CD("Lenny Kravitz", "A Song");
CD britney = new CD("Britney Spears", "Another Song");
System.out.println("You have " CD.getCDCount() " CDs"); //You call static methods on the class (you can also call them on instances, but it is important that you do not need to create a object of that class)
}