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this & overloading methods

Java Programming Notes

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Thomachan Antony
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7 views

this & overloading methods

Java Programming Notes

Uploaded by

Thomachan Antony
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The ‘this’ Keyword

It is illegal in Java to declare two local variables with the same name inside the same method or a

constructor. But we can have local variables, including formal parameters to methods, which overlap

with the names of the class ’ instance ‘ variables. However, when a local variable has the same name

as an instance variable, the local variable hides the instance variable. This is why width, height, and

depth were not used as the names of the parameters to the Box( ) constructor inside the Box class. If

they had been, then width would have referred to the formal parameter, hiding the instance variable

width.

Sometimes a method will need to refer to the object that invoked it. To allow this, Java defines the

this keyword. this can be used inside any method to refer to the current object. That is, this is always

a reference to the object on which the method was invoked. ‘this’ lets you refer directly to the object,

you can use it to resolve any name space collisions that might occur between instance variables and

local variables.

Box(double width, double height, double depth)

this.width = width;

this.height = height;

this.depth = depth;

}
Method Overloading
In Java it is possible to define two or more methods within the same class that share the same name,
as long as their parameter declarations are different. When this is the case, the methods are said to
be overloaded, and the process is referred to as method overloading. Method overloading is one of
the ways that Java implements polymorphism. When an overloaded method is invoked, Java uses the
type and/or number of arguments as its guide to determine which version of the overloaded method
to actually call. Thus, overloaded methods must differ in the type and/or number of their parameters.
While overloaded methods may have different return types, the return type alone is insufficient to
distinguish two versions of a method. When Java encounters a call to an overloaded method, it simply
executes the version of the method whose parameters match the arguments used in the call.

The main objective of method overloading is to ‘Generalize a method’ to reduce complexity. When
we use many method names for similar functions , it will increase the complexity of Application.

class OverloadDemo

void display()

System.out.println("No parameters");

void display (int a)

System.out.println("a: " + a);

void display (int a, int b)

System.out.println("a and b: " + a + " " + b);

double display (double a)

System.out.println("double a: " + a);

return a*a;

}
class Overload

public static void main(String args[])

OverloadDemo ob = new OverloadDemo();

double result;

ob. display();

ob. display(10);

ob. display(10, 20);

result = ob. display(123.25);

System.out.println("Result of ob. display(123.25): " + result);

This program generates the following output:

No parameters

a: 10

a and b: 10 20

double a: 123.25

Result of ob.display(123.25): 15190.5625

Here, display( ) is overloaded four times. The first version takes no parameters, the second takes one
integer parameter, the third takes two integer parameters, and the fourth takes one double
parameter. The fact that the fourth version of display( ) also returns a value is of no consequence
relative to overloading, since return types do not play a role in overload resolution. When an
overloaded method is called, Java looks for a match between the arguments used to call the method
and the method’s parameters.

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