A. Sundararajan's Weblog

Look Ma, javac tells me I am overriding static method wrongly!!

// File: SuperClass.java

public class SuperClass {
    public static int func() {
        return 0;
    }
}

// File: SubClass.java

public class SubClass extends SuperClass {
    public static boolean func() {
        return false;
    }
}

$ javac -fullversion
javac full version "1.6.0_15-b03-226"

javac SuperClass.java  SubClass.java 
SubClass.java:2: func() in SubClass cannot override func() in SuperClass; attempting to use incompatible return type
found   : boolean
required: int
    public static boolean func() { 
                          ^
1 error

The subclass uses a different return type for the same named method with same argument types. So, it is overloading SuperClass.func() and the overloading SubClass.func() differs only in return type. But, I am not sure of the error message....

( Oct 21 2009, 09:38:10 AM IST ) Permalink Comments [6] | | | | |