Is there a way to make sure classes implementing an Interface implement static methods?

Question

First of all, I read erickson\'s useful reply to \"Why can’t I define a static method in a Java interface?\". This question is not about the \"why\" but about the \"how then

Answer 1

What you want to do is not ok...

You want to define static methods in an interface I and have some implementations A and B of this interface, with their own implementation of these static methods declared in the interface I.

Just imagine, how the computer would know what to do if you call I.staticMethod() ??? will it use the implementation of A or B?!!

The interest to declare a method in the interface is to use polymorphism and be able to call this method for different object implementations... But for static methods, since you don't call the method from an instance (actually you can but not really needed...) but with ClassName.xxxMethod, it absolutly has no interest...

Thus you don't have to put these static methods in the interface... just put them in the both implementations and call them with A.staticMethod() and B.staticMethod() (and they don't even need to share a same method name!)

I wonder how you want to call your static method, do you sample code to show?