Java static keyword

The static keyword in java is used for memory management mainly. We can apply java static keyword with variables, methods, blocks and nested class. The static keyword belongs to the class than instance of the class.

The static can be:

1. variable (also known as class variable)
2. method (also known as class method)
3. block
4. nested class

1) Java static variable

If you declare any variable as static, it is known static variable.

• The static variable can be used to refer the common property of all objects (that is not unique for each object) e.g. company name of employees,college name of students etc.
• The static variable gets memory only once in class area at the time of class loading.

Advantage of static variable

It makes your program memory efficient (i.e it saves memory).

Understanding problem without static variable

Suppose there are 500 students in my college, now all instance data members will get memory each time when object is created.All student have its unique rollno and name so instance data member is good.Here, college refers to the common property of all objects.If we make it static,this field will get memory only once.

Java static property is shared to all objects.

Example of static variable

Output:111 Karan ITS
       222 Aryan ITS

Program of counter without static variable

In this example, we have created an instance variable named count which is incremented in the constructor. Since instance variable gets the memory at the time of object creation, each object will have the copy of the instance variable, if it is incremented, it won't reflect to other objects. So each objects will have the value 1 in the count variable.

Output:1
       1
       1

Program of counter by static variable

Output:1
       2
       3

2) Java static method

If you apply static keyword with any method, it is known as static method.

• A static method belongs to the class rather than object of a class.
• A static method can be invoked without the need for creating an instance of a class.
• static method can access static data member and can change the value of it.

Example of static method

Output:111 Karan BBDIT
       222 Aryan BBDIT
       333 Sonoo BBDIT

Another example of static method that performs normal calculation

Output:125

Restrictions for static method

Output:Compile Time Error

Q) why java main method is static?

3) Java static block

• Is used to initialize the static data member.
• It is executed before main method at the time of classloading.

Example of static block

Output:static block is invoked
       Hello main

Q) Can we execute a program without main() method?

Ans) Yes, one of the way is static block but in previous version of JDK not in JDK 1.7.

Output:static block is invoked (if not JDK7)

In JDK7 and above, output will be:

Output:Error: Main method not found in class A3, please define the main method as:
public static void main(String[] args)