What is the difference between access specifiers and access modifiers?

sgokhales picture sgokhales · Feb 10, 2010 · Viewed 64.8k times · Source

In Java, are access specifiers and access modifiers the same thing?

Answer

Michael Borgwardt picture Michael Borgwardt · Feb 10, 2010

"access modifier" is the official term for private, protected and public used in the Java language specification. "access specifier" is used synonymously in the Java API doc, but this is the first time I've noticed that. It's probably better to stick with the JLS term.