What are these different color characters when hovering over methods in eclipse?

Question

Suppose you have a method that returns an object. Thus, when you hover over this method used in some other class, eclipse shows you a pop-up window with a description of this method signature and the method returned.

But, my question is that before that comes back, there is a small symbol . At different times, you received different symbols of shape and color.

I have screenshots:

1) Green circle shape symbol

2) The symbol of the red square

3) A symbol of the shape of a yellow diamond

So,

• What is the meaning of this little symbol?
• Why are there different colors and shapes for different methods?
• Does this symbol represent any idea of ​​a method?

Answer 1

Symbols next to methods refer to access modifiers

• What is the meaning of this little symbol?
  The green circle is public
  Red square means private
  Yellow diamond protected
  Blue triangle means default access (package)

• Does this symbol represent any idea of ​​a method?
  Yes, this tells us what you can access from. Additional information about access modifiers: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html

Answer 2

A red square means that the method is closed. A yellow diamond means that the method is protected. A green circle means that the method is publicly available.

Answer 3

These are the same characters as in the entire IDE. Which represents the visibility of an element within your application.

An element visibility in a Java application can be:

• Private: Red Square
• Protected: yellow diamond
• Publication: Green Circle