Java “trick”, redefining daughter class member

Question

I\'m training for a Java exam, and I\'ve come across something I don\'t understand in last year subject. Here is the code

class Mother {
    int var = 2;

    in         


        

Answer 1

I ran this in Eclipse and checked the values with debugger, the debugger actually shows the local m -variable having TWO different var -members after the m = new Daugher() -line with values 2 and 1. m.var seems to resolve to the one in Mother, and the m.getVar() calls the getVar in Daughter (as expected).

However, when I change the main-method to look like this:

    Mother m = new Mother();
    System.out.println(m.var);
    System.out.println(m.getVar());
    Daughter d = new Daughter();
    System.out.println(d.var);
    System.out.println(d.getVar());

It actually outputs 2, 2, 1, 1, so it would seem that the declaration of the variable affects which class's var is used.