It is legal to declare a local variable with the same name as an instance variable; this is called "shadowing". : Method Variable « Java Source And Data Type « SCJP

1. SCJP
2. Java Source And Data Type
3. Method Variable

class MainClass{
   int count = 9;
   public void logIn() {
      int count = 10;  
      System.out.println("local variable count is " + count);
   }
   public void count() {
      System.out.println("instance variable count is " + count);
   }
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      new MainClass).logIn();
      new MainClass().count();
   }
}

local variable count is 10
instance variable count is 9