Private variable issues

Question

Hello,
While studying I have come up with this problem a few times and was wondering if you could help me.
I am currently working with linked list examples and the variables used have default package access. I am however told that the variables should normally be declared private.
So I made a kinda dummy class which shows my problem.
public class Private
     private Private unreachable;
     private String greating="hello";
     public Private()
          unreachable = null;
          greating="";
     public String getGreating()
          return greating;
     public Private getReach()
          return unreachable;
public class PrivateWork
     private String differentGreating;
     private Private reachMe;
     public PrivateWork()
          differentGreating="";
          reachMe=null;
     public void changeGreating(String change)
          Private p = new Private();
          p.greating = change;     //produces "greating has private access in the class Private" error
          p.getGreating() = change; //produces "unexpected type" error
          reachMe = p;
public class TestPrivate
     public static void main(String[]args)
          PrivateWork p = new PrivateWork();
          p.changeGreating("Good Morning");
}I know that by making the Private class an inner class of PrivateWork I can keep the variables declared private and the "p.greating = change;" will work.
However is there another way I can access the "greating" variable from the changeGreating(String change) method in the PrivateWork class.

Answer 1

I am currently working with linked list examples and the variables
used have default package access.What variables are you referring to?
p.greating = change;     //produces "greating has private access in the class Private" error That one should be pretty obvious because it is the definition of private: you can't use objects of the class to access private variables.
By the way, "greating" is spelled greeting.
p.getGreating() = change; //produces "unexpected type" errorI'm not sure about that one. But, you can split that statement up into two lines and you won't get a compile error:
String gr = p.getGreating();
gr = change;However, I don't think that is going to do what you expect. Try to predict the output of this example:
class Private
     private String greeting="hello";
     public String getGreeting()
          return greeting;
public class AATest1
     public static void main(String[]args)
          Private p = new Private();
          String gr = p.getGreeting();
          gr = "Goodbye";
          System.out.println(p.getGreeting()); //Output??
}