Question

16. The main function in a Java program is declared as:
public static void main(String args[])
What is the significance of the words public, static and void?
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Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

Every word in the public static void main statement has got a meaning to the JVM.

Public: It is an Access modifier, which specifies from where and who can access the method. Making the main() method public makes it globally available. It is made public so that JVM can invoke it from outside the class as it is not present in the current class

Static: It is a keyword which is when associated with a method, makes it a class related method. The main() method is static so that JVM can invoke it without instantiating the class. This also saves the unnecessary wastage of memory which would have been used by the object declared only for calling the main() method by the JVM.

Void: It is a keyword and used to specify that a method doesn’t return anything. As main() method doesn’t return anything, its return type is void. As soon as the main() method terminates, the java program terminates too. Hence, it doesn’t make any sense to return from main() method as JVM can’t do anything with the return value of it.

main: It is the name of Java main method. It is the identifier that the JVM looks for as the starting point of the java program. It’s not a keyword.

String[] args: It stores Java command line arguments and is an array of type java.lang.String class. Here, the name of the String array is args but it is not fixed and user can use any name in place of it.

Apart from the above mentioned signature of main, you could use public static void main(String args[]) or public static void main(String… args) to call the main function in java. The main method is called if it’s formal parameter matches that of an array of Strings.