Program 6.12: A Web Site Class with a static version

public class website {

  String name;
  String url;
  String description;
  static String version = "1.0";

  public website(String n, String u, String d) {
    name = n; 
    url  = u;
    description = d;
  }

  public static String getVersion() {
    return version;
  }

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  public String getURL() {
    return url;
  }

  public String getDescription() {
    return description;
  }

  public void setName(String s) {
    name = s;
  }

  public void setURL(String s) {
    url = s;
  }

  public void setDescription(String s) {
    description = s;
  }

  public String toString() {
    return  (name + " at " + url + " is " + description);
  }

}

website w = new website("Cafe Au Lait",
  "http://sunsite.unc.edu/javafaq/", 
  "Really cool!");
String s = w.getVersion();

String s = website.getVersion();

Static methods may not call non-static methods or members of the same class directly. Rather they must specify which instance of the class they are referring to. Trying to call a non-static method or member is a very common compile time error. The specific error message generated by the javac compiler will look something like this

Error: Can't make static reference to method void print() in class test.

Of course the names and signature will be changed to match the specific method and class.