how to override a method in java and then call the superclass method

Question

I am trying to override a method in the superclass in my java subclass and then call the overriden method from the superclass. Is this the correct way to do it. The method in the super class i want to overrride is called describe()

 public static void describe()
    {
        Item.describe();



    }

Answer 1

Use the super keyword.

@Override
public void describe() {
    super.describe();
}

Note the annotation which although is not necessary is "correct".

As was pointed out, static methods do not get inherited. It's possible to imitate polymorphic behavior with static methods using reflection but I do not recommend this for a beginner. It's just something that you can do. You can create identical static method signatures in the subclasses and use Method.invoke() on a superclass reference and functionally it is the same as overriding a static method.