Two methods with same name but different return type?

Question

Can I have two methods with same name but different return type in Java? I used to do this in C++ (method overloading or function overloading)
Here is my code:
import java.io.*;
public class Test{
public static void main(String ar[]){
try{          
//I give an invalid file name to throw IO error.
File file = new File("c:/invalid file name becasue of spaces");
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(file ,true);
writer.write("Test");
writer.close();     
} catch (IOException IOe){
     System.out.println("Failure");
//call first method - displays stack trace on screen
     showerr(NPe);
//call second method - returns stack trace as string
        String msg = showerr(NPe);
        System.out.println(msg);
} // end of main
public static void showerr(Exception e){
     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
     PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(sw);
     e.printStackTrace(pw);
     try{
     pw.close();
     sw.close();
     catch (IOException IOe){
     IOe.printStackTrace();     
     String stackTrace = sw.toString();
     System.out.println("Null Ptr\n" +  stackTrace );
}//end of first showerr
public static String showerr(Exception e){
     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
     PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(sw);
     e.printStackTrace(pw);
     try{
     pw.close();
     sw.close();
     catch (IOException IOe){
     IOe.printStackTrace();     
     return sw.toString();
}//end of second showerr
} // end of class
[\code]

Answer 1

Overloading is when you have multiple methods that have the same name and the same return type but take different parameters. See example
public class Overloader {
     public String buildError(Exception e){
          java.util.Date now = new java.util.Date() ;
          java.text.DateFormat format = java.text.DateFormat.getInstance() ;
          StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer() ;
          buffer.append(format.format(now))
               .append( " : " )
               .append( e.getClass().getName() )
               .append( " : " )
               .append( e.getMessage() ) ;
          return buffer.toString() ;
     public String buildError(String msg){
          java.util.Date now = new java.util.Date() ;
          java.text.DateFormat format = java.text.DateFormat.getInstance() ;
          StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer() ;
          buffer.append(format.format(now))
               .append( " : " )
               .append( msg ) ;
          return buffer.toString() ;
     public String buildErrors(int errCount){
          java.util.Date now = new java.util.Date() ;
          java.text.DateFormat format = java.text.DateFormat.getInstance() ;
          StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer() ;
          buffer.append(format.format(now))
               .append( " : " )
               .append( "There have been " )
               .append( errCount )
               .append( " errors encountered.")  ;
          return buffer.toString() ;
}Make sense ???
Regards,