private final static attribute vs private final attribute

Answer 1

A static variable stays in the memory. A non-static var is being initialized each time you call the constructor. I think it's better to use

private static final int Number = 10;

Answer 2

In general, static means "associated with the type itself, rather than an instance of the type."

That means you can reference a static variable without having ever created an instances of the type, and any code referring to the variable is referring to the exact same data. Compare this with an instance variable: in that case, there's one independent version of the variable per instance of the class. So for example:

Test x = new Test();
Test y = new Test();
x.instanceVariable = 10;
y.instanceVariable = 20;
System.out.println(x.instanceVariable);

prints out 10: y.instanceVariable and x.instanceVariable are separate, because x and y refer to different objects.

You can refer to static members via references, although it's a bad idea to do so. If we did:

Test x = new Test();
Test y = new Test();
x.staticVariable = 10;
y.staticVariable = 20;
System.out.println(x.staticVariable);

then that would print out 20 - there's only one variable, not one per instance. It would have been clearer to write this as:

Test x = new Test();
Test y = new Test();
Test.staticVariable = 10;
Test.staticVariable = 20;
System.out.println(Test.staticVariable);

That makes the behaviour much more obvious. Modern IDEs will usually suggest changing the second listing into the third.

There is no reason to have a declaration such as

private final int NUMBER = 10;

If it cannot change, there is no point having one copy per instance.

Answer 3

static means "associated with the class"; without it, the variable is associated with each instance of the class. If it's static, that means you'll have only one in memory; if not, you'll have one for each instance you create. static means the variable will remain in memory for as long as the class is loaded; without it, the variable can be gc'd when its instance is.

Answer 4

very little, and static

There isn't much difference as they are both constants. For most class data objects, static would mean something associated with the class itself, there being only one copy no matter how many objects were created with new.

Since it is a constant, it may not actually be stored in either the class or in an instance, but the compiler still isn't going to let you access instance objects from a static method, even if it knows what they would be. The existence of the reflection API may also require some pointless work if you don't make it static.

Answer 5

As already Jon said, a static variable, also referred to as a class variable, is a variable which exists across instances of a class.

I found an example of this here:

public class StaticVariable
{
  static int noOfInstances;
  StaticVariable()
  {
    noOfInstances++;
  }
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    StaticVariable sv1 = new StaticVariable();
    System.out.println("No. of instances for sv1 : " + sv1.noOfInstances);

    StaticVariable sv2 = new StaticVariable();
    System.out.println("No. of instances for sv1 : "  + sv1.noOfInstances);
    System.out.println("No. of instances for st2 : "  + sv2.noOfInstances);

    StaticVariable sv3 = new StaticVariable();
    System.out.println("No. of instances for sv1 : "  + sv1.noOfInstances);
    System.out.println("No. of instances for sv2 : "  + sv2.noOfInstances);
    System.out.println("No. of instances for sv3 : "  + sv3.noOfInstances);
  }
}

Output of the program is given below:

As we can see in this example each object has its own copy of class variable.

C:\java>java StaticVariable
No. of instances for sv1 : 1
No. of instances for sv1 : 2
No. of instances for st2 : 2
No. of instances for sv1 : 3
No. of instances for sv2 : 3
No. of instances for sv3 : 3

Answer 6

The static one is the same member on all of the class instances and the class itself.
The non-static is one for every instance (object), so in your exact case it's a waste of memory if you don't put static.

Answer 7

If you mark this variable static then as you know, you would be requiring static methods to again access these values,this will be useful if you already think of using these variables only in static methods. If this is so then this would be the best one.

You can however make the variable now as public since no one can modify it just like "System.out", it again depends upon your intentions and what you want to achieve.