Why can a class not be defined as protected?

Question

Why can we not define a class as protected?

I know that we can\'t, but why? There should be some specific reason.

Answer 1

Protected is not similar to public. Protected has both package level access plus can be accessed outside of packages only by inheritance..If a class say A outside a package INHERITS a class from other package(with protected method by using INHERITANCE) it can access the methods of this class B which has protected methods but the sub-classes derived from this class i.e., A can't access the protected methods..the opposite happens with public..

Example:

package 2;
class B
{
protected void method1()
{
}
}
package 1;
import 2.B;
class A extends B
{
//can access protected method
}
class C extends A
{
//can't access the protected method
}