Java Reference
In-Depth Information
• If a field name is shadowed by a declaration of a parameter or local variable,
then the name of the parameter or local variable can be changed without af-
fecting other code.
Obscuring involving constant names is rare:
• Constant names normally have no lowercase letters, so they will not nor-
mally obscure names of packages or types, nor will they normally shadow
fields, whose names typically contain at least one lowercase letter.
• Constant names cannot obscure method names, because they are distin-
guished syntactically.
6.5. Determining the Meaning of a Name
The meaning of a name depends on the context in which it is used. The determination of
the meaning of a name requires three steps:
• First, context causes a name syntactically to fall into one of six categories:
Pack-
ageName
,
TypeName
,
ExpressionName
,
MethodName
,
PackageOrTypeName
, or
AmbiguousName
.
• Second, a name that is initially classified by its context as an
AmbiguousName
or
as a
PackageOrTypeName
is then reclassified to be a
PackageName
,
TypeName
,
or
ExpressionName
.
• Third, the resulting category then dictates the final determination of the meaning of
the name (or a compile-time error if the name has no meaning).
PackageName:
Identifier
PackageName . Identifier
TypeName:
Identifier
PackageOrTypeName . Identifier
ExpressionName:
Identifier
AmbiguousName . Identifier
MethodName:
Identifier
AmbiguousName . Identifier
PackageOrTypeName:
Identifier
