Overriding Rules for static methods

[midhuna peru]

Hi guys ! I was trying out the following code in 3 ways.
CASE 1: eat() method in both the base class and sub class are static.

class Animal
{
	static void eat()
	{
		System.out.println("this is Animal");
	}
}

class Horse extends Animal
{
	static void eat()
	{
		System.out.println("This is Horse ");
	}
}

class OverrideRules1
{
	public static void main(String args[])
	{
		Horse h=new Horse();
		h.eat();
	}
}

The output is

This is Horse

CASE 2:
Only Animal's eat() method is static, the error is

OverrideRules1.java:11: eat() in Horse cannot override eat() in Animal; overridden method is static
         void eat()     
              ^

CASE 3
Only Horse's eat() method is static, the error is

OverrideRules1.java:11: eat() in Horse cannot override eat() in Animal; overriding method is static
        static void eat()      
                    ^

What is happenning in CASE 1,2,3 ? Is eat() method overriding in CASE 1?

[Kemal Sokolovic]

I don't think the code from Case 1 can even be compiled, so I'm wondering how did you manage to get the output?

The errors you get in Cases 2, 3 are saying that you are trying to override method, but it's signature differs from the one in your superclass.

Note that there is a difference between method overriding and method hiding, which occurs in the context of class methods. You can read more about it here.

[midhuna peru]

Oops sorry...I edited the proper code. Now it works.

[midhuna peru]

Thanks for the notes. So CASE 2 and 3 are compilation errors. But in CASE 1, this Hiding concept is completly new to me. I did not get it. I modified my main method as the following,

public static void main(String args[])
	{
		Horse h=new Horse();
		h.eat();

		Animal a=new Horse();
		a.eat();

		Horse.eat();
		Animal.eat();
	}

Output is

This is Horse
this is Animal
This is Horse
this is Animal

Now what is happening here?

[midhuna peru]

Hey guys! I got my answers from here in detail.