Use of 'super' keyword when accessing non-overridden superclass methods

Question

I\'m trying to get the hang of inheritance in Java and have learnt that when overriding methods (and hiding fields) in sub classes, they can still be accessed from the super

Answer 1

It depends on your needs and your desires. Using super forces the compile/application to ignore any potential methods in your current class. If you want to communicate that you only want to use the parent's method, then using super is appropriate. It will also prevent future modifications to your class to accidentally override the parent method thereby ruining your expected logic.

However, these cases are fairly rare. Using super everywhere within your class will lead to very confusing & cluttered code. In most general cases, just calling the method within your own class and allowing the compiler/jvm to determine which method (super or local) needs to be called is more appropriate. It also allows you to override/modify/manipulate the super's returning values cleanly.