Can the main( ) method be specified as private or protected?

Question

Can the main() method be specified as private or protected?

Will it compile?

Will it run?

Answer 1

is the method main( ) can be specified as private or protected?

Yes

will it compile ?

Yes

will it run ?

Yes, but it can not be taken as entry point of your application. It will run if it is invoked from somewhere else.

Give it a try:

$cat PrivateMain.java  
package test;
public class PrivateMain {
    protected  static void main( String [] args ) {
        System.out.println( "Hello, I'm proctected and I'm running");
    }
}
class PublicMain {
    public static void main( String [] args ) {
        PrivateMain.main( args );
    }
}
$javac -d . PrivateMain.java  
$java test.PrivateMain
Main method not public.
$java test.PublicMain
Hello, I'm proctected and I'm running

In this code, the protected method can't be used as entry point of the app, but, it can be invoked from the class PublicMain

Private methods can't be invoked but from the class it self. So you'll need something like:

 public static void callMain() {
      main( new String[]{} );
 }

To call main if it were private.