Method Overriding doubt

[Sushil Jamsandekar]

In below code, ClassB is having method with same name as ClassA but different return type. As overriding requires return type should also be same, this method should act as different method. But it gives compile time error as "This instance method cannot override the static method from ClassA". Why cant it acts like a new method?

public class ClassA {
    public static void methodThree(int i) {
    }
}

public class ClassB extends ClassA {
    public int methodThree(int i) {
    }
}

[John Jai]

Static methods cannot be overridden but can be hidden. Read Class Methods heading here

If you search either in this forum or the Java in General forum, you will get numerous answers.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Sushil Jamsandekar wrote:...But it gives compile time error as "This instance method cannot override the static method from ClassA". Why cant it acts like a new method?

The simple answer is: because it can't. static methods can't be overridden; only masked.

And if both methods were instance methods you would still have a problem because methods with the same signature must return the same type (or a covariant one).

Winston

Edit: too slow .