Static binding question

[Oceana Wickramasinghe]

I took this example from the study guide titled "java 6 and j2ee 1.5 Black Book"

class A
{
	static void calc(double x)
	{
		System.out.println("Square of the given value: "+(x*x));
	}
}
class B extends A
{
	static void calc(double x)
	{
		double y=5;
		System.out.println("Area of the rectangle: "+ (x*y));
	}
}
public class DynamicPoly
{
	public static void main(String args[])
	{
		A a=new B();
		a.calc(5);
		B b = new B();
		b.calc(6);
	}
}

The book states that since the method signatures are identical, the compiler fails to bind the methods to their definitions, and it is done at run time. But the problem is that these methods are declared static. To the best of my knowledge static methods are bound at compile time. Which one is right?

[Saral Saxena]

I think static methods are not overridden ..!!

[Stephan van Hulst]

Oceana, have you tried running the code?

[Oceana Wickramasinghe]

Yes the output is

Square of the given value: 25.0
Area of the rectangle: 30.0

Tried with nulls, no difference.

I dont know how a study guide could make such a huge error.

[Rob Spoor]

Saral is right. Fields and static members cannot be overridden, only shadowed. The reference type determines which one is called, not the actual type.

[Saral Saxena]

Rob Spoor wrote:Saral is right. Fields and static members cannot be overridden, only shadowed. The reference type determines which one is called, not the actual type.

Hi Rob,

Yeah agreed ..!!