In Java, what is the difference between "var = 3;" and "this.var = 3;"?

Question

Is the only purpose of this.var to distinguish from outside variable names that might conflict?

Answer 1

Usually, this chances occurs when you are shadowing. Here's an example of shadowing.

public class YourClass
{

       private int var;

}

It happens that you have this method:

public void yourMethod(int var)
{

       this.var = var; // Shadowing

}

'this.var' happens to be your instance variable and is declared below your class. While on the other hand, in my example, var was a parameter.

Answer 2

Using this explicitly indicates the instance var as opposed to a constructor/method variable or parameter of the same name.

Answer 3

One use case is:

If your method/constructor parameter also named as var and you want to access instance variable in that method, then you may need to explicitly tell this.var to use instance variable.