Polymorphism in Java

polymorphism = poly + morphism

poly means many. morph means forms. So polymorphism means many forms.

In OOPs, polymorphism means a method of different or many forms.

Polymorphism is achieved using method overloading and overriding concepts.

Method overloading

Method overloading is overwriting a method with the same method name but varying in parameter part.

We can overload a method

  • By varying in number of parameters.
  • By varying in datatype of the parameters.

Method overriding

Method overriding is re-writing the implementation of a existing method of a parent class in subclass.

In other words, it is just overwriting an implementation of a existing method of a parent class in subclass.

You will learn detailly about method overloading and overriding in next topics.