Difference between public member and private member of a class in Java?

public members can be accessed from outside the class they were declared in, private members can only be accessed from within the class they were declared in. Private members are commonly manipulated through get/set methods, which allows for greater encapsulation and hides the implementation from the calling function.

Example:

class sampleClass{

private: int private_member;

public: int public_member;

public: void setPrivateMember(int x){private_member = x;}; // private members can be accessed from within the class that they are declared in

public: int getPrivateMember(){return private_member;};

};

int main()

{

sampleClass A;

A.public_member = 5; // Perfectly legal

A.private_member = 7; // Syntax error, this will not compile

A.setPrivateMember(7); // Legal

cout << A.getPrivateMember(); // Legal

return 0;

}