What are Class/Static methods in Java?



The Class/Static methods are the methods that are called on the class itself, not on a specific object instance. The static modifier ensures implementation is the same across all the class instances. The class/static methods are called without instantiation means that static methods can only access other static members of the class. A few Java built-in static/class methods are Math.random(), System.gc(), Math.sqrt(), Math.random() and etc.

Syntax

public class className {
 modifier static dataType methodName(inputParameters) {
    // block of code to be executed
 }
}

Example

public class ClassMethodTest {
   public static int findMinimum(int num1, int num2) {
      int minimum = num2;
      if (num1 < num2)
         minimum = num1;
      return minimum;
   }
   public static void main(String args[]) {
      int min = ClassMethodTest.findMinimum(3, 5); // call this method without an instance.
      System.out.println("ClassMethodTest.findMinimum(3, 5) is: " + min);
   }
}

Output

ClassMethodTest.findMinimum(3, 5) is : 3

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