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The Java™ Tutorials
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Hiding Fields
Trail: Learning the Java Language
Lesson: Interfaces and Inheritance
Section: Inheritance

Hiding Fields

Within a class, a field that has the same name as a field in the superclass hides the superclass's field, even if their types are different. Within the subclass, the field in the superclass cannot be referenced by its simple name. Instead, the field must be accessed through super, which is covered in the next section. Generally speaking, we don't recommend hiding fields as it makes code difficult to read.


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