Static Methods in Java

Question

I am new to Java Programming. Can anyone please explain me why the program outputs - "fa la" even though the static method is overridden. I read that static methods can't be overridden in Java? Please correct me if I am wrong.

public class Tenor extends Singer {  
   public static String sing() {   
      return "fa";   
   }  
   public static void main(String[] args) {  
      Tenor t = new Tenor();  
      Singer s = new Tenor();  
      System.out.println(t.sing() + " " + s.sing());  
  }  
 }  
class Singer {   
   public static String sing() {   
       return "la";   
    }   
}  

Answer 1

You cannot override static methods in Java. It's simply calling the static methods directly on each class. BTW: As others have noted, it's considered bad practice to call static methods on instances. For clarity, you should do the following:

System.out.println(Tenor.sing() + " " + Singer.sing());

which is equivalent to the code you have written in your question.

Answer 2

Static methods should be accessed with the class name and not an object reference. The correct equivalent of what you wrote would be:

System.out.println(Tenor.sing() + " " + Singer.sing())

Java is guessing inferring which method you meant to invoke based on the type of object variable.

EDIT: As Stephen pointed out, it isn't guessing. Inferring would probably be a more accurate word. I was just trying to emphasize that calling static functions on object references might result in behavior you wouldn't expect. In fact, I just tried a few things and found out that my previous statement was incorrect: Java decides which method to call based on the variable type. This is obvious now that I think about it more but I can see how it could lead to confusion if you did something like:

Singer s = new Tenor();
System.out.println(s.sing());