Syntax Quiz 2, Step 2

Assignment:

Write a variable declaration for an instance variable named instanceVar, of a type suitable to hold an integer.

My solution:

int instanceVar;

private int instanceVar;

Common mistakes:

Not specifying the type.

Every variable used in a Java program must be declared, with a specific type, before it is used. The way to tell Java you're declaring a new variable is to write a type name, a space, and then the name of the new variable.

Putting quotation marks around the variable name.

Variable names cannot contain quotation marks. Quotation marks, in Java (and most other languages) indicate a literal string, i.e. a specific sequence of characters, typically to be printed out exactly as they appear between the quotation marks. A variable, by contrast, contains a value: for example, an int variable named instanceVar might contain the integer value 12, which has nothing to do with the characters of the variable's name.

Putting parentheses after the variable name.

There are no parentheses in a variable declaration; you're confusing it with a method header.