Access the superClass' toString()?

[Zren]

Is there a way to access the toString of a superClass? Or when you make a toString() class in the subClass, do you completely overwrite it?

I know super.toString() doesn't work since it's like it makes a new instance without loading the constructor class.

[wtd]

code:

chris@spectrum:~$ cat Test.java class Foo {         public String toString() {                 return "Foo";         } } class Bar extends Foo {         public String toString() {                 return "Bar";         }         public String superString() {                 return super.toString();         } } public class Test {         public static void main(String[] args) {                 Bar a = new Bar();                 System.out.println(a.toString());                 System.out.println(a.superString());         } } chris@spectrum:~$ javac Test.java chris@spectrum:~$ java Test Bar Foo chris@spectrum:~$

[DemonWasp]

super.toString() actually does what you want. See here: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/IandI/super.html

You're thinking of super(), which calls the constructor of the parent class explicitly - something completely different.

[Zren]

Weird, the first time I did this, all the values from the superClass were null, so I thought...ya. Turns out I had two other methods with the same name that I called from the constructor. So if a method has a same name in as one of it's subClass methods, is their any way to access it, or is it just dubbed lazy and bad programming?

Thanks WTD for the example.

[DemonWasp]

The Java language doesn't appear to specify any such method. Really, if you're relying on X method not to change its behaviour in a subclass, you should declare it as final so it can't be overridden.