instance method : Java Glossary

instance method

a subroutine or function designed to work on the current object. Methods are always part of some class. You can’t have stand-alone methods the way you can in C or C++. An instance method has access to all the instance variables, other instance methods, as well as the static class-as-a-whole methods and variables.

Static methods may not access the instance methods of their class (or any other class for that matter), other than via some object reference, e.g. anObject.someMethod(). Static methods may even access private instance methods in their class via some object reference.

Any instance method that accesses only static variables and methods, can be safely converted to static.

class method
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static vs instance

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