Inheritance of static members

Question

I realise that this is a very basic question but I'm hoping that someone will explain the answer to me. I have two classes, one extends the other and both have instance variables assigning a name to the object when it is instantiated. The superclass also has a print method which displays the name of the object. When the superclass and subclass are tested, both print their own names. However, if I make the name variables static, as well as the print function in the superclass, when I call printName on both superclass and subclass, both print the name of the superclass. Why? I had understood that static members were inherited in the same way as instance members.
public class MySuper{
     protected static String myName = "Super";
     protected static void printName(){
          System.out.println(myName);
public class MySub extends MySuper{
     protected static String myName = "Sub";
}MySuper.printName(); prints "Super"
MySub.printName(); prints "Super"

Answer 1

A static method uses static variables of the class
itself unless otherwise specified.So why doesn't MySub use it's own variables?
It does; the problem is that there are two variables with the same name. By default it is the variable of the class where the method is declared in, so MySub.printName() uses the variable MySuper.myName. Declaring a new variable in the subclass, static or not, does not override or replace the variable in the superclass, it simply hides it from the methods of the subclass.
When you inherit a method, it is not copied intothe SubClass, it is only available to be
used from this SubClass.
That was what I was trying to imply. That the
printName method is inherited by MySub and is
available to be used by MySub.
So MySub can use printName() (from MySuper) and
executes this on it's own variable myName="Sub".
No, it uses the superclass variable; subclass variables don't replace superclass ones.
Why
is that not happening with my static example when
that's exactly what happens with my non-static
example? Where is the difference?
There is no difference; you will see the same thing happen with instance methods:class MySuper {
    String myName = "Super";
    void printName() {
       System.out.println(myName);
class MySub {
    String myName = "Sub";
}When you call printName for an object of class MySub, you'll see "Super" printed.