Protected attributes modified outside class?

Question

I made the following modification to the example code. What I realize is that the value of d.legs can be changed in the main(). So, the question is on how to modify the access specifier of subclass variables/functions?

class Animal {
protected int legs;
public void eat() {
System.out.println("Animal eats");
}
}

class Dog extends Animal {
Dog() {
legs = 4;
}
}

class MyClass {
public static void main(String[ ] args) {

Dog d = new Dog();
d.legs = 5;
System.out.println(d.legs);
d.eat();
}
}
// Outputs:
// 5
// Animal eats

Answer 1

This is because a protected member is available within the same package. MyClass, Animal, and Dog are all part of the default package in this code.

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html