Java Polymorphism

Polymorphism means "many forms", and it occurs when we have many classes that are related to each other by inheritance.

Like we specified in the previous chapter; Inheritance lets us inherit attributes and methods from another class. Polymorphism uses those methods to perform different tasks. This allows us to perform a single action in different ways.

For example, think of a superclass called Animal that has a method called animalSound(). Subclasses of Animals could be Pigs, Cats, Dogs, Birds - And they also have their own implementation of an animal sound (the pig oinks, and the cat meows, etc.):

Example

class Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The animal makes a sound");
  }
}

class Pig extends Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The pig says: wee wee");
  }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The dog says: bow wow");
  }
}

Remember from the Inheritance chapter that we use the extends keyword to inherit from a class.

Now we can create Pig and Dog objects and call the animalSound() method on both of them:

Example

class Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The animal makes a sound");
  }
}

class Pig extends Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The pig says: wee wee");
  }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
  public void animalSound() {
    System.out.println("The dog says: bow wow");
  }
}

class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Animal myAnimal = new Animal();  // Create a Animal object
    Animal myPig = new Pig();  // Create a Pig object
    Animal myDog = new Dog();  // Create a Dog object
    myAnimal.animalSound();
    myPig.animalSound();
    myDog.animalSound();
  }
}

Try it Yourself »