Why doesn't Java allow overriding of static me

Question

Why is it not possible to override static methods?

If possible, please use an example.

Answer 1

Answer of this question is simple, the method or variable marked as static belongs to the class only, So that static method cannot be inherited in the sub class because they belong to the super class only.

Answer 2

By overriding, you achieve dynamic polymorphism. When you say overriding static methods, the words you are trying to use are contradictory.

Static says - compile time, overriding is used for dynamic polymorphism. Both are opposite in nature, and hence can't be used together.

Dynamic polymorphic behavior comes when a programmer uses an object and accessing an instance method. JRE will map different instance methods of different classes based on what kind of object you are using.

When you say overriding static methods, static methods we will access by using the class name, which will be linked at compile time, so there is no concept of linking methods at runtime with static methods. So the term "overriding" static methods itself doesn't make any meaning.

Note: even if you access a class method with an object, still java compiler is intelligent enough to find it out, and will do static linking.

Answer 3

In general it doesn't make sense to allow 'overriding' of static methods as there would be no good way to determine which one to call at runtime. Taking the Employee example, if we call RegularEmployee.getBonusMultiplier() - which method is supposed to be executed?

In the case of Java, one could imagine a language definition where it is possible to 'override' static methods as long as they are called through an object instance. However, all this would do is to re-implement regular class methods, adding redundancy to the language without really adding any benefit.

Answer 4

overriding is reserved for instance members to support polymorphic behaviour. static class members do not belong to a particular instance. instead, static members belong to the class and as a result overriding is not supported because subclasses only inherit protected and public instance members and not static members. You may want to define an inerface and research factory and/or strategy design patterns to evaluate an alternate approach.

Answer 5

I like and double Jay's comment (https://stackoverflow.com/a/2223803/1517187).
I agree that this is the bad design of Java.
Many other languages support overriding static methods, as we see in previous comments. I feel Jay has also come to Java from Delphi like me.
Delphi (Object Pascal) was the first language implementing OOP.
It is obvious that many people had experience with that language since it was in the past the only language to write commercial GUI products. And - yes, we could in Delphi override static methods. Actually, static methods in Delphi are called "class methods", while Delphi had the different concept of "Delphi static methods" which were methods with early binding. To override methods you had to use late binding, declare "virtual" directive. So it was very convenient and intuitive and I would expect this in Java.

Answer 6

Method overriding is made possible by dynamic dispatching, meaning that the declared type of an object doesn't determine its behavior, but rather its runtime type:

Animal lassie = new Dog();
lassie.speak(); // outputs "woof!"
Animal kermit = new Frog();
kermit.speak(); // outputs "ribbit!"

Even though both lassie and kermit are declared as objects of type Animal, their behavior (method .speak()) varies because dynamic dispatching will only bind the method call .speak() to an implementation at run time - not at compile time.

Now, here's where the static keyword starts to make sense: the word "static" is an antonym for "dynamic". So the reason why you can't override static methods is because there is no dynamic dispatching on static members - because static literally means "not dynamic". If they dispatched dynamically (and thus could be overriden) the static keyword just wouldn't make sense anymore.