Java Reference
In-Depth Information
JDK 8 added another new capability to
interface
: the ability to define one or more
static
methods. Like
static
methods in a class, a
static
method defined by an interface can be
called independently of any object. Thus, no implementation of the interface is necessary,
and no instance of the interface is required in order to call a
static
method. Instead, a
static
method is called by specifying the interface name, followed by a period, followed by the
method name. Here is the general form:
InterfaceName
.
staticMethodName
Notice that this is similar to the way that a
static
method in a class is called.
The following shows an example of a
static
method in an interface by adding one to
MyIF
, shown earlier. The
static
method is
getUniversalID( )
. It returns zero.
The
getUniversalID( )
method can be called, as shown here:
As mentioned, no implementation or instance of
MyIF
is required to call
getUniversalID(
)
because it is
static
.
One last point:
static
interface methods are not inherited by either an implementing class
or a subinterface.
