An interface declaration consists of modifiers, the keywordinterface
, the interface name, a comma-separated list of parent interfaces (if any), and the interface body. For example:Thepublic interface GroupedInterface extends Interface1, Interface2, Interface3 { // constant declarations double E = 2.718282; // base of natural logarithms // method signatures void doSomething (int i, double x); int doSomethingElse(String s); }public
access specifier indicates that the interface can be used by any class in any package. If you do not specify that the interface is public, your interface will be accessible only to classes defined in the same package as the interface.An interface can extend other interfaces, just as a class can extend or subclass another class. However, whereas a class can extend only one other class, an interface can extend any number of interfaces. The interface declaration includes a comma-separated list of all the interfaces that it extends.
The Interface Body
The interface body contains method declarations for all the methods included in the interface. A method declaration within an interface is followed by a semicolon, but no braces, because an interface does not provide implementations for the methods declared within it. All methods declared in an interface are implicitlypublic
, so the public modifier can be omitted.An interface can contain constant declarations in addition to method declarations. All constant values defined in an interface are implicitly
public
,static
, andfinal
. Once again, these modifiers can be omitted.