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member > member variable

member variable (field)
subject			fact

member variable	is a synonym of field
	can be declared anywhere in a class outside of a method
	can be initialized by an assignment statement
	is a member of a class or an object
	is accessible to the code in its class
	is partitioned into class variable, instance variable
	is a kind of member
	is a kind of variable
variable	can be accessed by other variables and methods in any class in the same package by default
	can contain different classes of objects depending on the type of the variable
	can contain only values that are of the same type as the variable or a subtype of the variable's type
	can have an interface as its type which means that, with the variable, you can invoke any operation supported by the interface
	can refer to a particular object, several different objects during the execution of a program, or no object at all
	has 1 value at any one time which is the object or class or primitive datum that it refers to
	has 1 name
	has scope which is the block in which it is declared
	has type
	has lifetime which is the time its block is being executed
	has purpose to refer to an object or a class or a primitive datum
	has scope
	has part value
	is declared by giving the data type followed by the name of the variable
	is destroyed in the block where it is declared
	may have access modifier public or private or protected
	refers to a class or an object or a primitive datum
	should be as private as possible
	should have comment if it is non-obvious
access unit	has access mode
syntactic unit	has syntax rule bold = mandatory italic = non-terminal normal font = optional

Kinds of member variable :

• class variable (23 facts) (static field, static member variable, static variable) - A data item present in a class that is shared by all instances of that class
• instance variable (19 facts) (data member, field, object variable) - A data item present in all the instances of a class, normally used to implement associations and attributes, Any item of data that is associated with a particular object.
• member variable in an interface (3 facts)

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