What access rights does the public modifier provide for class methods or fields?

The access modifier public in the Java programming language (and many others) means that the class method or field is accessible from any other code, without restrictions by package or class.

This means that:

• Any class in any package can invoke this method or access this field.
• There are no visibility restrictions other than those imposed by the language itself (for example, non-static methods require an object).

Example:

public class Example {
    public int number; // accessible to everyone

    public void printNumber() {
        System.out.println(number);
    }
}

// In another class and package
Example ex = new Example();
ex.number = 5; // access is allowed
ex.printNumber(); // also accessible

Thus, public is the most open level of access.