Polymorphism and constants

Question

Hi all,
I have a problem to do with polymorphism. I've written a simplified version of what's happening below (in the actual project I have many classes extending the base class):
class ClassA {
     private final int TEST = 10;
class ClassB extends ClassA {
     private final int TEST = 20;
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          ClassA bee = new ClassB();
          System.out.println(bee.TEST);
}As you can see, the problem is I want to be able to access a constant from the base class, but have it return the value from the actual overriding class. The way I'm doing it now is to put a method like:
public int getTest() {
     return TEST;
}in every class, but this seems like a bit of a hack. Does anyone have a more elegant solution?
Thanks,
Eugene

Answer 1

As you can see, the problem is I want to be able to
access a constant from the base class, but have it
return the value from the actual overriding class.Can't do it. Member variables are not runtime polymorphic. You'll have to use a getter method. Only non-private, non-final instance methods are runtime polymorphic in Java.