explain the flow of the program

[Parameswaran Thangavel]

 class Mammal{
         void eat(Mammal m){
         System.out.println("Mammal eats food");
         }
      }
      class Cattle extends Mammal{
         void eat(Cattle c){
         System.out.println("Cattle eats hay");
         }
      }
 
      class Horse extends Cattle{
          void eat(Horse h){
          System.out.println("Horse eats hay");
          }
      }
      public class Test{
        public static void main(String[] args){
          Mammal h = new Horse();
          Cattle c = new Horse();  
          c.eat(h);
        }
      }
 

[vinuharan haran]

Hi,
This is an example of overloading.
Lets go through the code
c.eat calls the eat method in Cattle class.Now the Cattle class has two overloaded methods.
void eat(Mammal m) and void eat(Cattle c) as Cattle extends Mammal class
Now comes the trickest part...
The compiler looks at the passed argument's reference type(note it doesn't care about the object the reference actually contains).The argument's reference type is Mammal.Hence the void eat(Mammal m) method is called.
Hence the output is:
Mammal eats food.
-vinu.
[ May 09, 2005: Message edited by: vinuharan haran ]