7:
Polymorphism
Polymorphism is the third essential feature of an object-oriented programming language, after data abstraction and inheritance.
It provides another dimension of separation of interface from implementation, to decouple what from how. Polymorphism allows improved code organization and readability as well as the creation of extensible programs that can be “grown” not only during the original creation of the project, but also when new features are desired.
Encapsulation creates new data types by combining characteristics and behaviors. Implementation hiding separates the interface from the implementation by making the details private. This sort of mechanical organization makes ready sense to someone with a procedural programming background. But polymorphism deals with decoupling in terms of types. In the last chapter, you saw how inheritance allows the treatment of an object as its own type or its base type. This ability is critical because it allows many types (derived from the same base type) to be treated as if they were one type, and a single piece of code to work on all those different types equally. The polymorphic method call allows one type to express its distinction from another, similar type, as long as they’re both derived from the same base type. This distinction is expressed through differences in behavior of the methods that you can call through the base class.
In this chapter, you’ll learn about polymorphism (also called dynamic binding or late binding or run-time binding) starting from the basics, with simple examples that strip away everything but the polymorphic behavior of the program.
Upcasting revisited
In Chapter 6 you saw how an object can be used as its own type or as an object of its base type. Taking an object reference and treating it as a reference to its base type is called upcasting because of the way inheritance trees are drawn with the base class at the top.
You also saw a problem arise, which is embodied in the following example about musical instruments. Since several examples play Notes, we should create the Note class separately, in a package:
//: c07:music:Note.java
// Notes to play on musical instruments.
package c07.music;
import com.bruceeckel.simpletest.*;
public class Note {
private String noteName;
private Note(String noteName) {
this.noteName = noteName;
}
public String toString() { return noteName; }
public static final Note
MIDDLE_C = new Note("Middle C"),
C_SHARP = new Note("C Sharp"),
B_FLAT = new Note("B Flat");
// Etc.
} ///:~
This is an “enumeration” class, which has a fixed number of constant objects to choose from. You can’t make additional objects because the constructor is private.
In the following example, Wind is a type of Instrument, therefore Wind is inherited from Instrument:
//: c07:music:Music.java
// Inheritance & upcasting.
package c07.music;
import com.bruceeckel.simpletest.*;
public class Music {
private static Test monitor = new Test();
public static void tune(Instrument i) {
// ...
i.play(Note.MIDDLE_C);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Wind flute = new Wind();
tune(flute); // Upcasting
monitor.expect(new String[] {
"Wind.play() Middle C"
});
}
} ///:~
//: c07:music:Wind.java
package c07.music;
// Wind objects are instruments
// because they have the same interface:
public class Wind extends Instrument {
// Redefine interface method:
public void play(Note n) {
System.out.println("Wind.play() " + n);
}
} ///:~
//: c07:music:Music.java
// Inheritance & upcasting.
package c07.music;
import com.bruceeckel.simpletest.*;
public class Music {
private static Test monitor = new Test();
public static void tune(Instrument i) {
// ...
i.play(Note.MIDDLE_C);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Wind flute = new Wind();
tune(flute); // Upcasting
monitor.expect(new String[] {
"Wind.play() Middle C"
});
}
} ///:~
The method Music.tune( ) accepts an Instrument reference, but also anything derived from Instrument. In main( ), you can see this happening as a Wind reference is passed to tune( ), with no cast necessary. This is acceptable—the interface in Instrument must exist in Wind, because Wind is inherited from Instrument. Upcasting from Wind to Instrument may “narrow” that interface, but it cannot make it anything less than the full interface to Instrument.
