Constructor in java

Constructor in java is block of code which allows you to create instance of the object. It does not have return type.
It has two main points

  • Constructor name should be same as class
  • Constructor should not have any return type else it will be same as method.

There are three types of Constructor in Java.

  • Default Constructor
  • No arg constructor
  • Parameterized constructor

How to call a constructor?

To call a constructor, you need to use the keyword new, followed by the name of class, followed by parameters if any.
For example: If you want to create the object of class Employee, you can call the constructor like this: new Employee()

Types of Contructor

Default Constructor:

When you do not provide the constructor for your class, JVM will create default constructor.It will not be visible to you, JVM will create it automatically while initializing object of the class.

Let’s check with the example of example:

As you can see here, we did not provide any constructor for this class but JVM will create default constructor in this case.
When you run above program, you will get below output:

John 20

no arg construtor

no arg constructor is constructor which you provide explicitly in the class and it does not have any argument.

When you call above program, you will get below output:

Calling no arg constructor
John
20

Parameterized constructor

When you pass arguments to the constructor, this type of constructor is called Parameterized constructor.

When you run above program, you will get below output:

Calling Parameterized constructor
John
20

If you provide Parameterized Constructor,then you need to be careful.
Let’s see below program:

If you notice, you will get compilation error at line no.38. Why so?
because if you create parameterized constructor in class, JVM won’t provide default constructor to you. If you do not write any constructor then only JVM will provide you default constructor.

Constructor chaining

Constructor chaining is the concept where child class calls the constructor of its parent class internally or explicitly.
Whenever you create an object in Java, its superclass constructor gets called. The compiler simply put super() in the constructor internally.
Let’s see with help of example:
Let’s say you have Person class with attribute name and you have child class named Employee which extends Person class.

When you run above program, you will get below output:

Calling Person constructor
Calling Employee class constructor
Martin

As you can see here, First Person constructor got called and it set name variable to John
Then Employee constructor got called which have overridden name variable to Martin.
That’s why we see a variable name as "Martin" in the end.

What if you want to explicitly call super class parameterized constructor

You can easily do it using super keyword.
Let’s see with the help of Example.

When you run above program, you will get below output:

Calling Person Parameterized constructor
Calling Employee class constructor
Employee’s name:John

What if you want to call another constructor of same class

If you want to call overloaded constructor of same class, you can use this keyword to do that.
For example:

When you run above program, you will get below output:

Calling No arg constructor
Calling Parameterized constructor
Employee’s name : John
Employee’s age : 20

Please note that this keyword used for calling overloaded constructor should be first statement in that constructor.

that’s all about Constructor in Java.

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