Inheritance and private methods

[Tiberius Marius]

I m not sure i understand why the output of this code is the way it is aka Person Person .The first is clear , new Person().printPerson(); displays Person but for the second : new Student().printPerson(); it accesses the Student constructor that points to the Person class => object. It builds the Person instance then goes back to the Student constuctor .Both methods are private and to my knowledge invisible one to the other , except that you cant run the the Person one because it's private so the only one in the Student class is the Student one . Guess it 's incorrect , but why ? (is because private methods cant be overriden and somehow the super class one always has priority ? , even if it's private?)

public class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Person().printPerson();
        new Student().printPerson();
    }
}

class Student extends Person {
    private String getInfo() {
        return "Student";
    }
}

class Person {
    private String getInfo() {
        return "Person";
    }
    public void printPerson() {
    System.out.println(getInfo());
    }
}

[Knute Snortum]

Both objects access the public printPerson() method. What's not clear?

[Mike. J. Thompson]

The getInfo method in Person is private. The getInfo method in Student does not override the method in person, they are completely separate. That is why only the Person version of the method is being called.

[Knute Snortum]

You can only inherit non-private, non-static members. But ever if Person getInfo() were public, you'd still get Student's getInfo(). Try it.

[Henry Wong]

Knute Snortum wrote:You can only inherit non-private, non-static members. But ever if Person getInfo() were public, you'd still get Student's getInfo(). Try it.

Almost, the rule has to do with accessibility. Since the subclass can't access the super class private method, no inheritance will occur.

This means that if the Student class getInfo() method had been package private, meaning default access, then inheritance will occur with subclasses within the same package -- but not with subclasses in different packages.

Henry

[Tiberius Marius]

Knute Snortum wrote:Both objects access the public printPerson() method. What's not clear?

I think i understand , the method print printPerson() (in Person class) is executed and it can only run the local private method ... Aka if the printPerson method was in the Student class it would display Student ?

[Knute Snortum]

Right. An object is always going to execute its "local" (in the same class) method even if inheritance were happening.

[Tiberius Marius]

thanks for clearing it