Polymorphism is an important concept of object-oriented programming. It simply means more than one form. That is, the same entity (method or operator or object) behaves differently in different scenarios. For example,

The + operator in Java is used to perform two specific functions. When it is used with numbers (integers and floating-point numbers), it performs addition.

int a = 5;
int b = 6;
int sum = a + b;     //  Output = 11

And when we use + operator with strings, it performs string concatenation. For example,

String firstName = "abc ";
String lastName = "xyz";
name = firstName + lastName;     //  Output = abc xyz

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Types of Polymorphism

In Java, Polymorphism can be divided into two types:

• Run-time Polymorphism
• Compile-time Polymorphism

 

Run-time Polymorphism

In Java, run-time polymorphism can be achieved through method overriding.

Suppose the same method is created in the superclass and its subclasses. In this case, the method that will be called depends upon the object used to call the method. For example,

Example 1: Method Overriding

abstract class Animal{
   public abstract void makeSound();
}

class Dog extends Animal{
   @Override
   public void makeSound(){
      System.out.println("Bark bark..");
   }
}

class Cat extends Animal{
   @Override
   public void makeSound(){
      System.out.println("Meow meow..");
   }
}

class Main{
   public static void main(String[] args){
     Dog  d1 = new Dog();
      d1.makeSound();

      Cat c1 = new Cat();
      c1.makeSound();
   }
}

Output:

Bark bark…
Meow-meow...

 

In the above example, the method makeSound() has different implementations in two different classes. When we run the program,

• the expression d1.makeSound() will call the method of Dog class. It is because d1 is an object of the Dog class.
• the expression c1.makeSound() will call the method of Cat class. It is because c1 is an object of the cat class.

The method that will be called is determined during the execution of the program. Hence, method overriding is a run-time polymorphism.

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Compile-time Polymorphism

The compile-time polymorphism can be achieved through method overloading and operator overloading in Java.

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Method Overloading

In a Java class, we can create methods with the same name if they differ in parameters. For example,

void func(){ ... }
void func(int a){ ... }
float func(double a){ ... }
float func(int a, float b){ ... }

This is known as method overloading in Java.

Let’s take a working example of method overloading.

Example 3: Method Overloading

class Demo{
 public void displayPattern(){
   for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
     System.out.print("*");
   }
 }

 public void displayPattern(char symbol){
   for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
     System.out.print(symbol);
   }
 }
}

class Main{
 public static void main(String[] args){
   Demo d1 = new Demo();
   d1.displayPattern();
   System.out.println("n");
   d1.displayPattern('#');
 }
}

Output:

**********
##########

In the above program, the displayPattern() method is overloaded.

• If we call the method without passing any arguments, a pattern of * is created.
• If we call the method by passing a character as an argument, a pattern of that character is created.

 

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Java Method Overloading Vs Method Overriding

• In the case of method overriding, methods should be inside different classes. Whereas, in the case of method overloading, methods should be inside the same class.
• Method overriding is performed at run-time whereas method overloading is performed at compile-time.

 

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Operator Overloading

Some operators in Java behave differently with different operands. For example,

• + operator is overloaded to perform numeric addition as well as string concatenation, and
• operators like &, |, and ! are overloaded for logical and bitwise operations.

Let’s see how an operator is overloaded in Java.

The + operator in Java is used to perform two specific functions. When it is used with numbers (integers and floating-point numbers), it performs addition. For example,

int a = 5;
int b = 6;
int sum = a + b;     //  Output = 11

And when we use + operator with strings, it performs string concatenation. For example,

String firstName = "abc ";
String lastName = "xyz";
name = firstName + lastName;     //  Output = abc xyz

In languages like C++, we can define operators to work differently for different operands. However, Java doesn’t support user-defined operator overloading.

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Why Polymorphism?

Polymorphism allows us to create consistent code. For example,

Suppose we need to render a circle and a square. To do so, we can create a Polygon class and inherited two subclasses Circle and square from it. In this case, it makes sense to create a method having the same name render() in both these subclasses rather than creating methods with different names.

In our method overloading example, we have used the same method name displayPattern() to display two different patterns for consistency.

The print() method in Java is also an example of Polymorphism (method overloading). The same method is used to print values of different types like char, int, String, etc. We can also use the same method to print multiple values at once.

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Polymorphic Variables

In Java, object variables (instance variables) represent the behavior of polymorphic variables. It is because object variables of a class can refer to objects of its class as well as objects of its subclasses. For example,

class Animal{
   public void displayInfo(){
      System.out.println("I am an animal.");
   }
}

class Dog extends Animal{
   @Override
   public void displayInfo(){
      System.out.println("I am a dog.");
   }
}

class Main{
   public static void main(String[] args){
    
     // declaration of object variable a1 of the Animal class
      Animal a1;
    
    // object creation of the Animal class
      a1 = new Animal();
      a1.displayInfo();
    // object creation of the dog class
      a1 = new Dog();
      a1.displayInfo();
   }
}

Output:

I am an animal.
I am a dog.

In the above example, we have created an object variable a1 of the Animal class. Here, a1 is a polymorphic variable.

It is because,

• In statement a1 = new Animal(), a1 refers to the object of the Animal class.
• In statement a1 = new Dog(), a1 refers to the object of the Dog class.