What is variable shadowing used for in a Java class?

Question

I\'m reading my Deitel, Java How to Program book and came across the term shadowing. If shadowing is allowed, what situation or what purpose is there for it in a Ja

Answer 1

The two common uses are constructors and set methods:

public Foo(int x) {
    this.x = x;
}

public void setX(int x) {
    this.x = x;
}

Very occassionally it's useful if you want a copy of the variable at a single instant, but the variable may change within the method call.

private void fire() {
    Listener[] listeners = this.listeners;
    int num = listeners.length;
    for (int ct=0; ct

(Of course, a contrived example made unnecessary with the posh for loop.)