Defining Constants
Any variable declared final in Java is a constant--its value must be specified with an initializer when it is declared, and that value may never be changed. The Java equivalent of a C #define'ed constant is a static final variable declared within a class definition. If the compiler can compute the value of such a static final variable at compile-time, it uses the computed value to pre-compute other compile-time constants that refer to the value. The variable java.lang.Math.PI is an example of such a constant. It is declared like this:
public final class Math {
Note two things about this example. First, the C convention of using CAPITAL letters for constants is also a Java convention. Second, note the advantage Java constants have over C preprocessor constants: Java constants have globally unique hierarchic names, while constants defined with the C preprocessor always run the risk of a name collision. Also, Java constants are strongly typed and allow better type-checking by the compiler than C preprocessor constants.
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