Modifiers

[sgopalan]

Why can't a abstract method also be declared as
static?
Why is
static abstract void k12();
incorrect ?

[Thomas Paul]

Because static methods can't be overriden and abstract methods must be overridden.

[Barkat Mardhani]

Hi Paul:
I always wanted to find out if there is anything construct in Java that will allow polymorhism for static method methods?
Thanks
Barkat

[Thomas Paul]

Static methods do not participate in polymorphism. They can't because they are inlined at compile time.

[Shishio San]

You can't use the static modifier with a method's prototype. When declaring an abstract method it's not implemented yet.

[Valentin Crettaz]

sgopalan,
Welcome to Javaranch
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[Bishal P]

Static methods do not participate in polymorphism. They can't because they are inlined at compile time.

Hey this is new to me. I only thought final methods were inlined at compile time. What other kinds of method can be inlined?

[Thomas Paul]

private methods are also inlined. Making a private method final is redundant.

[Bishal P]

so bottomline is that any method that cannot be overridden can be inlined. Cool, thats easy to remember.

[Thomas Paul]

What's even more interesting is that some methods are inlined at run time. See this thread:
https://coderanch.com/t/201812/Performance/java/Making-everything-compiler-allows-final
The bottom line is that any method that can possibly be inlined will end up being inlined as soon as possible, either at compile time or runtime.

[Vin Kris]

Paul, will the methods be inlined regardless of the size of the method? wouldn't that be an overhead? If a method that is eligible for inlining has a huge size, and also invoked a lot of times from a single method, wouldn't inlining be a dis-advantage? (because i read somewhere that the maximum size of a single method is ~64k bytes)
I think the C/C++ compilers take these details into consideration before inlining. Any links on this topic?

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Vin Kris:
(because i read somewhere that the maximum size of a single method is ~64k bytes)

I am sure Java takes this into account but... a method in Java > 64k bytes!!! Was it written by a COBOL programmer?
(This is not meant as a swipe at COBOL programmers. It is simply the case that COBOL programmers generally write large scale procedural top down programs.)