The override keyword serves two purposes: It shows the reader of the code that “this is a virtual method, that is overriding a virtual method of the base class.” The compiler also knows that it’s an override, so it can “check” that you are not altering/adding new methods that you think are overrides. To explain … Read more
If a type implements two interfaces, and each interface define a method that has identical signature, then in effect there is only one method, and they are not distinguishable. If, say, the two methods have conflicting return types, then it will be a compilation error. This is the general rule of inheritance, method overriding, hiding, … Read more
The clearest way to express polymorphism is via an abstract base class (or interface) public abstract class Human{ … public abstract void goPee(); } This class is abstract because the goPee() method is not definable for Humans. It is only definable for the subclasses Male and Female. Also, Human is an abstract concept — You … Read more
In C++ you have to explicitly name the base class in calling the derived class method. This can be done from any method from the derived class. The override is a special case of the method of the same name. In Java there is no multi inheritance, so you can use super which will uniquely … Read more
On invoking overridable method from constructors Simply put, this is wrong because it unnecessarily opens up possibilities to MANY bugs. When the @Override is invoked, the state of the object may be inconsistent and/or incomplete. A quote from Effective Java 2nd Edition, Item 17: Design and document for inheritance, or else prohibit it: There are … Read more
Overriding depends on having an instance of a class. The point of polymorphism is that you can subclass a class and the objects implementing those subclasses will have different behaviors for the same methods defined in the superclass (and overridden in the subclasses). A static method is not associated with any instance of a class … Read more
The theory (for the language lawyers and the mathematically inclined): equals() (javadoc) must define an equivalence relation (it must be reflexive, symmetric, and transitive). In addition, it must be consistent (if the objects are not modified, then it must keep returning the same value). Furthermore, o.equals(null) must always return false. hashCode() (javadoc) must also be … Read more
Eclipse is defaulting to Java 1.5 and you have classes implementing interface methods (which in Java 1.6 can be annotated with @Override, but in Java 1.5 can only be applied to methods overriding a superclass method). Go to your project/IDE preferences and set the Java compiler level to 1.6 and also make sure you select … Read more
Yes, it is important if your item will be used as a key in a dictionary, or HashSet<T>, etc – since this is used (in the absence of a custom IEqualityComparer<T>) to group items into buckets. If the hash-code for two items does not match, they may never be considered equal (Equals will simply never … Read more