What is class in Java

Java is an object oriented programming language. Classes and objects are the key concepts to understand object oriented programming. Java programming is based on these two terms. Let's understand what a class means in this tutorial and we will discuss about objects in next tutorial.

Programmatically a class is a group of variables, constructors, methods, blocks etc. These are optional components of a class. A class is defined using class keyword followed by class name. The name of the class is used to refer that class within or outside the class. The basic syntax of declaring a class is :

 class ClassName
   {
      // variables, constructors, 
       // method declarations
   }                  

Here class is a keyword, used to define a class in java. ClassName is the name of class, given by the programmer. After the class name, it's the class body given inside { }. Variables, methods, constructors etc defined inside the balanced { } after the class name are the part of that class.

In object oriented world, think of a class as a blueprint or a design that basically describes how an object of a class will behave and what data(properties) it will contain inside it. The methods of a class defines the behavior of object while instance variables are the data of the object that it will contain inside.

Real time example of class

Some of the real world examples of class are Person, Vehicle, House, Tree, Dog etc. For an example a Person class have properties like name, age, height etc. and behaviors like walk, talk, eat, sleep etc. Now if you create an object of this class, it will have these properties and behaviors inside it. Once you created a class, you can create multiple objects of that class.

Java Class Program

 class Person
   {                           
       // Instance variables, describes state/properties of object of this class.
       String name;
       int age;
       int height;         
       // methods, describes behaviors of object of this class.
       public void walk() {
            System.out.println("Hi my name is : "+name+", age : "+age+" year,"
            +" height : "+height+" cm. I can Walk");
          }
       public void talk() {
            System.out.println("Hi my name is : "+name+", age : "+age+" year,"
            +" height : "+height+" cm. I can Talk");
          }                    
   }
      
 class ClassDemo
  {
   public static void main(String [] args)
       {                   
          Person p1 = new Person(); // Creating object of class Person
          p1.name = "Rahul";
          p1.age = 20;
          p1.height = 170;
          p1.walk();
          p1.talk();          
       }
   }

Save above program as ClassDemo.java
compile as javac ClassDemo.java
run as java ClassDemo

Output:

In above example we have created a class called Person which is basically a prototype, describing that object of this class will have properties as name, age, height and will have behaviors as walk and talk. You can add more properties(instance variables) and behaviors(methods) in your program. This example creates only a single object of Person class. You can create multiple objects of Person class and assign different values inside it.

So next time when you are creating a class, think that you are creating a prototype which will tell that what properties(state) and behaviors will exist inside the object of that class. This way you will get better idea to design your class.

A class is also called as a blueprint or a template or a design or a Type. These are just different words use to describe a class in java.

The syntax of declaring a class given in this tutorial is the minimal one which is required. Some of the more keywords that can be declared along with class keyword are public, abstract, final, extends, implements. A class can also have another class, static blocks, enum etc inside the body of it. We will discuss all these things in later tutorials.