Why are static methods called with null references,valid ?

Question

This is my code :
package inheritance;
public class inh6{
     public static void method(){
     System.out.println("Called");
     public static void main(String[] args){
          inh6 t4 = null;
     t4.method();
O/P :
CalledHere t4 is a null reference and yet we are able to call a method on it,why is null pointerexception not thrown.Why are we able to call static methods using null references ?
t4 is null means it doesnot refer to any memeory address,hence how is method() called correctly.
I hope i am clear. :)
Thank you for your consideration.

Answer 1

punter wrote:
jverd wrote:
Memory addresses have nothing to do with it. I doubt memory addresses are even mentioned once in the JLS.
By memory address i mean the memory location the reference is pointing to.I know what you mean. But if you think it's relevant, can you show me where in the JLS it says anything about memory locations?
>
You can do that because a) t4's type is "reference to inh6" and b) method() is declared static, which means that you don't need an object to call it, just the class. That class comes from the compile time type of t4. The fact that t4 is null at runtime is irrelevant.
So at compile time the type of t4 is inh6 and hence the method is called.Is it ? Had method() not been static a NullPointerException would have been thrown.Correct.
With non-static, non-private, non-final methods, which implementation of the method gets called is determined at runtime, buy the class of the object on which it's being called. If any one of those "non"s goes away, then the method is entirely determined at compile time, and in the case of static methods, there's no instance necessary to call the method in the first place.