12.5 Creation of New Class Instances

A new class instance is explicitly created when one of the following situations occurs:

Evaluation of a class instance creation expression (§15.8) creates a new instance of the class whose name appears in the expression.
Invocation of the newInstance method (§20.3.6) of class Class creates a new instance of the class represented by the Class object for which the method was invoked.

A new class instance may be implicitly created in the following situations:

Loading of a class or interface that contains a String literal (§3.10.5) may create a new String object (§20.12) to represent that literal. (This might not occur if the same String has previously been interned (§3.10.5).)
Execution of a string concatenation operator (§15.17.1) that is not part of a constant expression sometimes creates a new String object to represent the result. String concatenation operators may also create temporary wrapper objects for a value of a primitive type.

Each of these situations identifies a particular constructor to be called with specified arguments (possibly none) as part of the class instance creation process.

Whenever a new class instance is created, memory space is allocated for it with room for all the instance variables declared in the class type and all the instance variables declared in each superclass of the class type, including all the instance variables that may be hidden. If there is not sufficient space available to allocate memory for the object, then creation of the class instance completes abruptly with an OutOfMemoryError. Otherwise, all the instance variables in the new object, including those declared in superclasses, are initialized to their default values (§4.5.4). Just before a reference to the newly created object is returned as the result, the indicated constructor is processed to initialize the new object using the following procedure:

Assign the arguments for the constructor to newly created parameter variables for this constructor invocation.
If this constructor begins with an explicit constructor invocation of another constructor in the same class (using this), then evaluate the arguments and process that constructor invocation recursively using these same five steps. If that constructor invocation completes abruptly, then this procedure completes abruptly for the same reason; otherwise, continue with step 5.
This constructor does not begin with an explicit constructor invocation of another constructor in the same class (using this). If this constructor is for a class other than Object, then this constructor will begin with a explicit or implicit invocation of a superclass constructor (using super). Evaluate the arguments and process that superclass constructor invocation recursively using these same five steps. If that constructor invocation completes abruptly, then this procedure completes abruptly for the same reason. Otherwise, continue with step 4.
Execute the instance variable initializers for this class, assigning their values to the corresponding instance variables, in the left-to-right order in which they appear textually in the source code for the class. If execution of any of these initializers results in an exception, then no further initializers are processed and this procedure completes abruptly with that same exception. Otherwise, continue with step 5. (In some early Java implementations, the compiler incorrectly omitted the code to initialize a field if the field initializer expression was a constant expression whose value was equal to the default initialization value for its type.)
Execute the rest of the body of this constructor. If that execution completes abruptly, then this procedure completes abruptly for the same reason. Otherwise, this procedure completes normally.

In the example:


class Point {
	int x, y;
	Point() { x = 1; y = 1; }
}

class ColoredPoint extends Point {
	int color = 0xFF00FF;
}

class Test {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		ColoredPoint cp = new ColoredPoint();
		System.out.println(cp.color);
	}
}

a new instance of ColoredPoint is created. First, space is allocated for the new ColoredPoint, to hold the fields x, y, and color. All these fields are then initialized to their default values (in this case, 0 for each field). Next, the ColoredPoint constructor with no arguments is first invoked. Since ColoredPoint declares no constructors, a default constructor of the form:

ColoredPoint() { super(); }

is provided for it automatically by the Java compiler.

This constructor then invokes the Point constructor with no arguments. The Point constructor does not begin with an invocation of a constructor, so the compiler provides an implicit invocation of its superclass constructor of no arguments, as though it had been written:

Point() { super(); x = 1; y = 1; }

Therefore, the constructor for Object which takes no arguments is invoked.

The class Object has no superclass, so the recursion terminates here. Next, any instance variable initializers and static initializers of Object are invoked. Next, the body of the constructor of Object that takes no arguments is executed. No such constructor is declared in Object, so the compiler supplies a default one, which in this special case is:

Object() { }

This constructor executes without effect and returns.

Next, all initializers for the instance variables of class Point are executed. As it happens, the declarations of x and y do not provide any initialization expressions, so no action is required for this step of the example. Then the body of the Point constructor is executed, setting x to 1 and y to 1.

Next, the initializers for the instance variables of class ColoredPoint are executed. This step assigns the value 0xFF00FF to color. Finally, the rest of the body of the ColoredPoint constructor is executed (the part after the invocation of super); there happen to be no statements in the rest of the body, so no further action is required and initialization is complete.

Unlike C++, the Java language does not specify altered rules for method dispatch during the creation of a new class instance. If methods are invoked that are overridden in subclasses in the object being initialized, then these overriding methods are used, even before the new object is completely initialized. Thus, compiling and running the example:


class Super {
	Super() { printThree(); }
	void printThree() { System.out.println("three"); }
}


class Test extends Super {
	int indiana = (int)Math.PI;													// That is, 3

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		Test t = new Test();
		t.printThree();
	}
	void printThree() { System.out.println(indiana); }
}

produces the output:

0
3

This shows that the invocation of printThree in the constructor for class Super does not invoke the definition of printThree in class Super, but rather invokes the overriding definition of printThree in class Test. This method therefore runs before the field initializers of Test have been executed, which is why the first value output is 0, the default value to which the field three of Test is initialized. The later invocation of printThree in method main invokes the same definition of printThree, but by that point the initializer for instance variable three has been executed, and so the value 3 is printed.

See §8.6 for more details on constructor declarations.