What's up with protected access in JAVA?

[evac-q8r]

Can anybody explain to me why the protected access specifier allows all classes within a package to access the protected member variable instead of only allowing derived classes to access the protected member variable like in C++.

Thanks a million,

-V

[nspils]

The use of a package means that there is a relationship among the classes in the package. They are designed to work together, support each other, provide service to each other.

It can be seen as providing "friend" functionality to Java.

If you don't want to give classes this kind of access, make the method/field private, or don't create a package.