Overloading with Short and int

Question

Why this code will print int?

public static void main(String[] args) {
    short s = 5;
    A(s);
}
public static void A(int a){
    System.out.println("int");
}

public static void A(Short a){
    System.out.println("short");
}

Answer 1

Because upcasting to int was in version 1.0 of Java and auto-boxing was added in version 5.0. Changing the behaviour would break code written for older version of Java.

However, mixing types like this suggests there is something wrong with your design, its only something you are going to find in puzzlers. ;)

Answer 2

Because widening beats boxing

Reason:

Because widening was there long long before where boxing was introduced later on so not to break any code it does this.