Core Java Interview Questions and Answers

Question: What does it mean that a class or member is final?

Answer: A final class can no longer be subclassed. Mostly this is done for security reasons with basic classes like String and Integer. It also allows the compiler to make some optimizations, and makes thread safety a little easier to achieve. Methods may be declared final as well. This means they may not be overridden in a subclass. Fields can be declared final, too. However, this has a completely different meaning. A final field cannot be changed after it's initialized, and it must include an initializer statement where it's declared. For example, public final double c = 2.998; It's also possible to make a static field final to get the effect of C++'s const statement or some uses of C's #define, e.g. public static final double c = 2.998;