tags:

views:

299

answers:

3
+4  Q: 

Are true and false keywords?

Are true and false keywords in Java?

+15  A: 

No. true and false are literals.

Warrior  2009-02-23 01:12:01
A: 

No, but they're reserved.

Giovanni Galbo  2009-02-23 01:13:39
+21  A: 

Here's the complete list of Java Language Keywords. In particular, note that

true, false, and null might seem like keywords, but they are actually literals; you cannot use them as identifiers in your programs.

Zach Scrivena  2009-02-23 01:15:11
Can you explain the difference?
Tim Matthews  2009-02-23 01:23:21
It's syntactical. Literals represent values, like "Hello" and 42, whereas keywords don't.
Zach Scrivena  2009-02-23 01:26:41
OK but why isn't true,false,null a keyword as well as a literal?
Tim Matthews  2009-02-23 01:36:08
"Keywords" and "literals" are mutually exclusive, by their definition.
Zach Scrivena  2009-02-23 01:39:59
i the java language specification, it says "The tokens are the identifiers (§3.8), keywords (§3.9), literals (§3.10), separators (§3.11), and operators (§3.12) of the syntactic grammar.". so by saying "false, ..." is not a keyword, that maybe simplifies matters. i dunno
Johannes Schaub - litb  2009-02-23 01:55:44
Thanks Zach. Now bookmark the link, it will refrain you from posting lot of other questions.
Adeel Ansari  2009-02-23 02:03:54
@CAD1337: what would be gained if they where keywords?
Joachim Sauer  2009-04-15 11:36:15

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