Overloading and Overriding in Java

Published on June 16, 2022

Method Overriding

Method overriding is a way to change or modify the behavior of a method that is already defined in a parent class. When we override a method, we provide a different implementation for that method in a child class. The child class has a method with the same name, return type, and parameters as the method in the parent class, but it performs a different action.

To override a method in Java, we follow these steps:

1. Create a new class that extends an existing class (the parent class).
2. Declare a method in the child class with the same name, return type, and parameters as the method we want to override in the parent class.
3. Add the @Override annotation (optional but recommended) before the method declaration in the child class to indicate that we are overriding a method.
4. Provide a new implementation for the method in the child class.

Example:

Method Overloading

Method overloading is a way to have multiple methods with the same name in a class, but with different parameters. By overloading methods, we can perform similar operations with different types or numbers of inputs.

To overload a method in Java, we follow these steps:

1. Create a class and define multiple methods with the same name but different parameter lists.
2. The parameters can differ in terms of their number or types.
3. The return type of the methods can be the same or different.
4. In simpler terms, method overriding allows a child class to change the behavior of a method inherited from its parent class, while method overloading allows a class to have multiple methods with the same name but different inputs.

Example: