Assign a value to class variable

Question

I want to define a class variable in class. And I want all subclasses of that class ot have a different value for that class variable. How can I do that?
public class BaseClass {
  public static String tableName = "";
}Now if I have a ClassA and I want to assign a value like this :
public class ClassA extends BaseClass {
  tableName = "location";
} I got an error message.
I can move it in a static initializer block but then it will only work when the class is loaded. In my case its possible i want to get this value without loading the class.
Ditto if i move it to constructor.
Any input? Thanks

Answer 1

Are you saying that if i have 2 classes ClassA and
ClassB inherited from BaseClass, then both are
sharing the same copy of 'tableName' staticvariable?
If yes then I should go with an instance variable.No, I am saying that you can easily declare a
tablName in A and another tableName in B.
A.tableName will be shared between all the instances
s of A. B.tableName will be shared between all the
instances of B. And BaseClass.tableName is
irelevant. I think you try to use
BaseClass.tableName as some kind of template for
sub-classes, but this does not happen: you need to
declare tableName again and again in each subclass.
IThanks for clarifying. Each class needs to have a variable "tableName" and it needs to have one copy of this variable for all of that class's objects. 2 classes will not have the same value of this tableName variable.
Thats why I was defining it as static variable. And I define it in BaseClass so that I dont have to define it again in each subclass.
Is there any better way? Thanks