Strange object inheritance problem

Question

Hi everyone,
I'm getting the error "clone has protected access in java.lang.Object" in the following code:
try {
return constructor.newInstance(new Object[] {
(Animation)left.clone(), //here
(Animation)right.clone(), //here
(Animation)deadLeft.clone(), //here
(Animation)deadRight.clone() // and here
This doesn't make sense to me, because I thought everything was a subclass of object, and would thus be able to use protected methods. Am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

class Parent {
  protected void foo() {}
class Child extends Parent {
  void bar() {
    Parent p = new Parent();
    p.foo(); // illegal
    super.foo(); // ok
    this.foo(); // ok
    foo(); // ok, same as this.foo();
}It's a common misunderstanding. The gory details are laid out in JLS 6.6.2 -- Details on protected access
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/names.html#6.6.2