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Java -
Interf
aces
An interface is a reference type in Java. It is similar to class. It is a collection of abstract methods. A
class implements an interface, thereby inheriting the abstract methods of the interface.
Along with abstract methods, an interface may also contain constants, default methods, static methods,
and nested types. Method bodies exist only for default methods and static methods.
Writing an interface is similar to writing a class. But a class describes the attributes and behaviors of
an object. And an interface contains behaviors that a class implements.
Unless the class that implements the interface is abstract, all the methods of the interface need to be
defined in the class.
An interface is similar to a class in the following
ways –
An interface can contain any number
of methods.
An interface is written in a file with a .java extension, with the name of the interface
matching the name of the file.
The byte code of an interface appears in a .class file.

Interfaces appear in packages, and their corresponding bytecode file must be in a directory
structure that matches the package name.
However, an interface is different from a class in several ways,
including –
You cannot instantiate an interface.
An interface does not contain any
constructors.

All of the methods in an interface

Declaring Interfaces

The interface keyword is used to declare an interface. Here is a simple example to declare an interface −

Example
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Following is an example of an interface −
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Interfaces have the following properties −

An interface is implicitly abstract. You do not need to use the abstract keyword while
declaring an interface.
Each method in an interface is also implicitly abstract, so the abstract keyword is not
needed. Methods in an interface are implicitly public.

Example

Implementing Interfaces

When a class implements an interface, you can think of the class as signing a contract, agreeing to
perform the specific behaviors of the interface. If a class does not perform all the behaviors of the
interface, the class must declare itself as abstract.
A class uses the implements keyword to implement an interface. The implements keyword appears in
the class declaration following the extends portion of the declaration.

Example
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This will produce the following result −

Mammal eats
Mammal
travels
When overriding methods defined in interfaces, there are several rules to be followed −

Checked exceptions should not be declared on implementation methods other than the ones
declared by the interface method or subclasses of those declared by the interface method.
The signature of the interface method and the same return type or subtype should be
maintained when overriding the methods.
An implementation class itself can be abstract and if so, interface methods need not be
implemented.
When implementation interfaces, there are several rules −

A class can implement more than one interface at a time.

A class can extend only one class, but implement many interfaces.

An interface can extend another interface, in a similar way as a class can extend another class.

Extending Interfaces
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An interface can extend another interface in the same way that a class can extend another class. The
extends keyword is used to extend an interface, and the child interface inherits the methods of the parent
interface.
The following Sports interface is extended by Hockey and Football interfaces.

Example
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The Hockey interface has four methods, but it inherits two from Sports; thus, a class that implements
Hockey needs to implement all six methods. Similarly, a class that implements Football needs to define
the three methods from Football and the two methods from Sports.

Extending Multiple Interfaces

A Java class can only extend one parent class. Multiple inheritance is not allowed. Interfaces are not
classes, however, and an interface can extend more than one parent interface.
The extends keyword is used once, and the parent interfaces are declared in a comma-separated
list. For example, if the Hockey interface extended both Sports and Event, it would be declared as
−

Example

public interface Hockey extends Sports, Event

Tagging Interfaces
The most common use of extending interfaces occurs when the parent interface does not contain any
methods. For example, the MouseListener interface in the java.awt.event package extended
java.util.EventListener, which is defined as −
Example

package java.util;
public interface EventListener
{ }
An interface with no methods in it is referred to as a tagging interface. There are two basic design
purposes of tagging interfaces −
Creates a common parent − As with the EventListener interface, which is extended by dozens of other
interfaces in the Java API, you can use a tagging interface to create a common parent among a group of
interfaces. For example, when an interface extends EventListener, the JVM knows that this particular
interface is going to be used in an event delegation scenario.
Adds a data type to a class − This situation is where the term, tagging comes from. A class that
implements a tagging interface does not need to define any methods (since the interface does not have
any), but the class becomes an interface type through polymorphism.