Getting the name of a sub-class from within a super-class

Question

Let\'s say I have a base class named Entity. In that class, I have a static method to retrieve the class name:

class Entity {
    public static         


        

Answer 1

Not possible. Static methods are not runtime polymorphic in any way. It's absolutely impossible to distinguish these cases:

System.out.println(Entity.getClass());
System.out.println(User.getClass());

They compile to the same byte code (assuming that the method is defined in Entity).

Besides, how would you call this method in a way where it would make sense for it to be polymorphic?