Java Reference
In-Depth Information
• A member class or member interface
M
declared in another class
C
has a canonical
name if and only if
C
has a canonical name.
In that case, the canonical name of
M
consists of the canonical name of
C
, fol-
lowed by “
.
”, followed by the simple name of
M
.
• An array type has a canonical name if and only if its component type has a canon-
ical name.
In that case, the canonical name of the array type consists of the canonical name of
the component type of the array type followed by “
[]
”.
A local class does not have a canonical name.
Example 6.7-2. Fully Qualified Names v. Canonical Name
The difference between a fully qualified name and a canonical name can be seen in
code such as:
package p;
class O1 { class I {} }
class O2 extends O1 {}
Both
p.O1.I
and
p.O2.I
are fully qualified names that denote the member class
I
, but
only
p.O1.I
is its canonical name.
