Java Reference
In-Depth Information
An abstract method does not have a body. The abstract keyword must be used
to define an abstract method. An abstract method can be only part of an abstract
class. Any non-abstract class must override all abstract methods of the superclass and
include the bodies for the methods. Overriding a method means including a method
with the same signature in the subclass.
Here is the new version of the FictionalCharacter class.
public abstract class FictionalCharacter
{
private String name;
public FictionalCharacter ()
{
} public FictionalCharacter(String name)
{
this .name = name;
}
public String getName () {
return name ;
} public void setName( String name) {
this .name = name;
public abstract double computeStrength() ;
}
Note that an abstract class does not need to contain an abstract method. However,
an abstract method can only be defined as part of an abstract class. For example, if the
FictionalCharacter class was not abstract, then the following code will be ambiguous.
FictionalCharacter fc1 = new FictionalCharacter( "Superman" );
System. out . println ( fc1 . computeStrength() ) ;
The problem is that the implementation of the computeStrength method is miss-
ing inside the FictionalCharacter class. That is, the method can only be invoked on
an object that belongs to a subclass of the FictionalCharacter class. By defining the
FictionalCharacter class abstract, we can guarantee that the class will only be in-
stantiated from subclasses of the FictionalCharacter classes and therefore calling the
computeStrength method will be meaningful.
8.6 Auto-casting, Polymorphism, and Dynamic Binding
Let us now examine an implementation of the Superhero and Villain classes. In each
class, the strength of the fictional character is computed differently.
public class Superhero extends FictionalCharacter
{
private int goodPower ;
private int respect ;
public Superhero(String name, int goodPower ,
int respect)
{
super (name) ;
this . goodPower = goodPower ;
this . respect = respect ;
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search