Variable Inheritance in Java

Question

I have a Super class and a bunch of subclasses. I want to have one field that has the same name in every single subclass, but I do not want it to be defined in the super class, or at least I do not want to use that value. This is what I have right now

public abstract class Big {

    public String tellMe = "BIG";

    public Big() {}

    public void theMethod() {
        System.out.println ("Big was here: " + tellMe() + ", " + tellMe);
    }
    public String tellMe() {
        return tellMe;
    }
}

public class Little extends Big{

    public String tellMe = "little";
    public Little(){}

    public String tellMe() {
        return "told you";
    }
    public static void main(String [] args) {
        Little l = new Little();
        l.theMethod();
    }
}

When I run Little, this is the output

Big was here: told you, BIG

I am not sure why 'told you' is printed out while tellMe refers to "BIG". How can both be true?

My problem is that I want the method tellMe() to be in Big, and to have the variable tellMe (that it will actually return) to be defined in all the subclasses. The only way I can get this to work is as I have written, by rewriting the tellMe() method in each subclass. But doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of inheritance??? Please help

EDIT: I do not use the constructor in my subclasses. All I want is a field that can be set in all subclasses and a method in the super that uses those values. I don't understand why this isn't possible because every subclass would have to implement it, so it would make sense... If this simply is not possible, let me know please

Answer 1

Fields are not virtual, unlike methods. For this reason, it is a bad idea to declare fields with the same name as a field in another class in the hierarchy. The field referred to in theMethod is always going to be from Big (i.e. when you declare a field with the same name, it just hides the old field when in the scope of the replacing class, but doesn't replace it).

One solution would be to override a method that gets the field from the current class:

In theMethod replace the tellMe field with getTellMe() and for all classes override getTellMe() to return the correct value (or the field that hides the superclass's field).