Scribd
Upload
2 views

Polymorphism in Java With Example

Polymorphism in Java allows a single action to be performed in different ways, exemplified by the 'sound()' method in the Animal class and its subclasses Horse and Cat, which provide their own implementations. This concept includes runtime polymorphism, where the method called is determined at runtime, and compile-time polymorphism, demonstrated through method overloading. The document also provides complete code examples for both runtime and compile-time polymorphism.

Uploaded by

muhammadzohaibkhan921
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
2 views

Polymorphism in Java With Example

Polymorphism in Java allows a single action to be performed in different ways, exemplified by the 'sound()' method in the Animal class and its subclasses Horse and Cat, which provide their own implementations. This concept includes runtime polymorphism, where the method called is determined at runtime, and compile-time polymorphism, demonstrated through method overloading. The document also provides complete code examples for both runtime and compile-time polymorphism.

Uploaded by

muhammadzohaibkhan921
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Polymorphism in Java with example

Polymorphism is one of the OOPs feature that allows us to perform a single


action in different ways. For example, lets say we have a class Animal that has a
method sound(). Since this is a generic class so we can’t give it a implementation
like: Roar, Meow, Oink etc. We had to give a generic message.

public class Animal{


...
public void sound(){
System.out.println("Animal is making a sound");
}
}
Now lets say we two subclasses of Animal class: Horse and Cat that extends
(see Inheritance) Animal class. We can provide the implementation to the same
method like this:

public class Horse extends Animal{


...
@Override
public void sound(){
System.out.println("Neigh");
}
}
and

public class Cat extends Animal{


...
@Override
public void sound(){
System.out.println("Meow");
}
}
As you can see that although we had the common action for all
subclasses sound() but there were different ways to do the same action. This is a
perfect example of polymorphism (feature that allows us to perform a single
action in different ways). It would not make any sense to just call the generic
sound() method as each Animal has a different sound. Thus we can say that the
action this method performs is based on the type of object.

What is polymorphism in programming?


Polymorphism is the capability of a method to do different things based on the
object that it is acting upon. In other words, polymorphism allows you define one
interface and have multiple implementations. As we have seen in the above
example that we have defined the method sound() and have the multiple
implementations of it in the different-2 sub classes.
Which sound() method will be called is determined at runtime so the example we
gave above is a runtime polymorphism example.

Types of polymorphism and method overloading & overriding are covered in the
separate tutorials. You can refer them here:
1. Method Overloading in Java – This is an example of compile time (or static
polymorphism)
2. Method Overriding in Java – This is an example of runtime time (or dynamic
polymorphism)
3. Types of Polymorphism – Runtime and compile time – This is our next tutorial
where we have covered the types of polymorphism in detail. I would recommend
you to go though method overloading and overriding before going though this
topic.

Lets write down the complete code of it:

Example 1: Polymorphism in Java


Runtime Polymorphism example:
Animal.java

public class Animal{


public void sound(){
System.out.println("Animal is making a sound");
}
}
Horse.java

class Horse extends Animal{


@Override
public void sound(){
System.out.println("Neigh");
}
public static void main(String args[]){
Animal obj = new Horse();
obj.sound();
}
}
Output:

Neigh
Cat.java
public class Cat extends Animal{
@Override
public void sound(){
System.out.println("Meow");
}
public static void main(String args[]){
Animal obj = new Cat();
obj.sound();
}
}
Output:

Meow

Example 2: Compile time Polymorphism


Method Overloading on the other hand is a compile time polymorphism example.

class Overload
{
void demo (int a)
{
System.out.println ("a: " + a);
}
void demo (int a, int b)
{
System.out.println ("a and b: " + a + "," + b);
}
double demo(double a) {
System.out.println("double a: " + a);
return a*a;
}
}
class MethodOverloading
{
public static void main (String args [])
{
Overload Obj = new Overload();
double result;
Obj .demo(10);
Obj .demo(10, 20);
result = Obj .demo(5.5);
System.out.println("O/P : " + result);
}
}
Here the method demo() is overloaded 3 times: first method
has 1 int parameter,
second method has 2 int parameters and third one is having double parameter.
Which method is to be called is determined by the arguments we pass while
calling methods. This happens at runtime compile time so this type of
polymorphism is known as compile time polymorphism.

Output:

a: 10
a and b: 10,20
double a: 5.5
O/P : 30.25

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy