Core Web Programming, Second Edition

7.1. Instance Variables

In the simplest case, a class is like a structure or a record. An object (an instance of a class) is normally created by new before a call to a class constructor. The constructor looks like a method with the same name as the class being created. For example:

Point p1 = new Point(2, 4);
Color red = new Color(255, 0, 0);

Sometimes, however, the call to new can be hidden. For instance, method calls often return an object; the methods might call new internally or might return an object that already exists. For instance:

OutputStream out = someSocket.getOutputStream();
Point p1 = someWindow.location();

In a very few cases, such as for strings and arrays, Java has shorthand syntax for creating an object. For instance, the ...