How to user polymophism??

[qionghua yang]

Hi there,
I would like to have an abstract method in my base class. And I would like it to be a static method. But when I compile I get the error message "illegal combinatio of the accessor". Is it true that static can't be with abstract? Can someone explain to me why?
********My code******************
public abstract class superClass
{
public superClass()
{
}
//super abstract method
abstract public static String getName();
}
public class subClass
{
public subClass()
{
}
public static String getName()
{
return "SubClass";
}
}

Thanks, qionghua

[Manfred Leonhardt]

HI,
As I understand it:
Abstract -- subclasses will provide implementation of method
Static -- can not be overridden only hidden by subclasses
Therefore, since we can't override the abstract method Java will not let us place both static and abstract together.
For example:

class A
{
  public static void someMethod()
  {
    System.out.println( "Inside class A" );
  }
}
public class B extends A
{
  public static void someMethod()
  {
    System.out.println( "Inside class B" );
  }
  public static void main( String[] args )
  {
    A a = new B();
    B b = new B();
    a.someMethod();  // Output: Inside Class A
    b.someMethod();  // Output: Inside Class B
  }
}

If static methods could be overridden then we would have expected the output of "Inside Class B" twice.
Regards,
Manfred.

[qionghua yang]

Thanks.
So I got it now. If a method is a static method, it can't be overriden by derived class. But then in this case, how can I implement the polymorphism?
qionghua