Dan's questions : overloading

[Kristof Camelbeke]

Question 23
class A {void m1(A a) {System.out.print("A");}}
class B extends A {void m1(B b) {System.out.print("B");}}
class C extends B {void m1(C c) {System.out.print("C");}}
class D {
public static void main(String[] args) {
A c1 = new C(); C c2 = new C(); c1.m1(c2);
}}
What is the result of attempting to compile and run the program?
a. Prints: A
b. Prints: B
c. Prints: C
d. Compile-time error
e. Run-time error
f. None of the above
Answer is : prints A
I thought it was C because I've read that with overloading the compiler looks at the reference to see what method should be invoked..
c1.m1(c2);
Here the reference c2 is of type C so the compiler will invoke the method in class C, no ?
I thought that it was during overiding that the Object type was looked at during runtime but here we are talking about overloading methods... Guess I'm confused...

[Dan Chisholm]

Kristof,
The reference type of c1 is A, and type A only declares one method named m1. The methods that overload method name m1 are declared in classes B and C, but those methods can not be invoked using a reference of type A.

[Kristof Camelbeke]

Ok Dan I got it ! Thanks
One more question concerning this :
Would it be answer c if class A had overloaded methods m1 with types B & C ?
Kristof

[Alfred Kemety]

Yes Kris, you can try it with the code as well.