This is the ninth lesson in a series introducing 10-year-olds to programming through Minecraft. Learn more here.

Let's take a closer look at our Block class.

package net.minecraft.block;

public class Block
{
    public static final StepSound soundWoodFootstep = 
                new StepSound("wood", 1.0F, 1.0F);

    public float blockHardness;
    protected Icon blockIcon;
    private String unlocalizedName;

    public Block(int id, Material material) 
    {
        ...
    }

    protected void initializeBlock() 
    {
        ...
    }

    public void setStepSound(StepSound sound) 
    {
        ... 
    }
}

Packages

Every class is contained in a package. If we're creating a new kind of Block (e.g. RiverBankBlock) in our own package (e.g. mc.jb.first), then we need to import the package that Block lives in.

Our source code file, RiverBankBlock.java might look like this:

package mc.jb.first;

import net.minecraft.block;

public class RiverBankBlock extends Block
{
    ....
}

If we didn't include the import statement, the compiler would get confused because it wouldn't know where to find the class definition for Block.

Visibility

Parameters: Method parameters are only accessible within a given method. In our Block class, there is no way to use the sound parameter from the setStepSound method in the initializeBlock method.

Fields: All fields defined in a class are accessible in any method within that class.

Derived classes: Only fields marked public and protected in a parent class are accessible in child classes. Our RiverBankBlock class could access blockIcon and blockHardness from Block, but not unLocalizedName.

Non-derived classes: If we create an object ourselves (using the new keyword), we only have access to its public fields and methods.

Lifetime

In general, we won't need to worry too much about how long an object exists. However, there is a special keyword called static that we will come across while creating mods.

Static method: A method that can be called without creating an instance of the class. Here's a class with static methods we'll use when creating our own type of block:

public class MinecraftForge
{
    public static void setBlockHarvestLevel(
        Block block,
        String toolClass,
        int harvestLevel)
    {
        ....
    }       
}

To call this method, we use the name of the class itself rather than an instance (variable) name.

Block block = new Block();

MinecraftForge.setBlockHarvestLevel(
    block, ....);

Static field: A field that can be accessed without creating an instance of the class.

Looking back at our Block example, if we want to call setStepSound, we first need to have an instance of Block either as a method parameter or as a variable we created ourself.

However, anyone can use the public field soundWoodFootstep "directly", like this:

StepSound sound = Block.soundWoodFootstep;