Constructor in Java and Types of Constructors in Java

Constructor is a special method in Java which is used to initialize the object. It looks like a normal method however it is not. A normal java method will have return type whereas the constructor will not have an explicit return type. A constructor will be called during the time of object creation (i.e) when we use new keyword follow by class name.

For Example : Lets say we have class by the name “Test“, we will create object for Test class like below

Test t = new Test();

This will invoke the default constructor of the Test class.

Rules for creating a Constructors in Java

There are two important rules which has to be kept in mind before creating a constructor.

• A Constructor name should be the same name as the class name.

Suppose if we have class Test, Then constructors name also should be “Test” and not anything else.

• A Constructor cannot have a explicit return type

We cannot declare a constructor with return type. For example we cannot have constructor like public void Test()

Types of Java Constructors

There are two type of Constructors in Java, they are

1. Default Constructor (or) no-arg Constructor
2. Parameterized Constructor

Default Constructor (or) no-arg constructor

A Constructor with no parameters is called as Default Constructor or no-arg constructor. In the below code we have created the no-arg constructor which gets called during the time of object creation (Car c = new Car())

public class Car 
{
    Car()
    {
        System.out.println("Default Constructor of Car class called");
    }
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
          //Calling the default constructor
          Car c = new Car();
    }
}

Output :

Default Constructor of Car class called

Parameterized Constructor

A Constructor which has parameters in it called as Parameterized Constructors, the Parameterized constructor is used to assign different values for the different objects.  In the below example we have a parameterized constructor for the car class which set the value for the parameter “carColor”

public class Car 
{
    String carColor;
    Car(String carColor)
    {
        this.carColor = carColor;
    }
    
    public void disp()
    {
        System.out.println("Color of the Car is : "+carColor);
    }
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        //Calling the parameterized constructor
        Car c = new Car("Blue");
        c.disp();
    }
}

Output :

Color of the Car is : Blue

Can a Constructor return any value ?

The answer is the Constructor cannot return any explicit value but implicitly it will be returning the instance of the class.

public class Car 
{
    Car()
    {
        System.out.println("Default Constructor of Car class called");
    }
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        //Calling the default constructor
        Car c1 = new Car();
    }
}

Here we doesn’t have any explicit return type but when you instantiate the class with the syntax

 Car c1 = new Car();

We are actually creating new object by allocating memory and calling the constructor. Here, the result is clearly an instance of Class Car.