I have a Java project with the following file structure:

src
└── A
    ├── P1.java

└── P2.java

P1.java is inside package A, while P2.java is at the same level as A.

Here is the code for P1.java:

package A;

public class P1 {
    public int a1;
    protected int a2;
}

And here is the code for P2.java:

import A.P1;

public class P2 extends P1 {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        P1 p = new P1();
        System.out.println(p.a1);
        System.out.println(p.a2); // error? 
    }
}

When I run this, I get the following error:

java: a2 has protected access in A.P1

However, I recall that a protected variable should be accessible in a subclass, even if they are not in the same package.

Why is this happening? Since P2 is a subclass of P1, it should be able to access a2.