Overriding and methods

Today I had a little challenge. I had a Class, I call it Class A. It has a method, i call it “doSomething”. Class B extends Class A, and overrides this method with a totally new behavior. Class C who extends from Class B wants to have the original behavior from Class A.

Here is a picture:

The Problem

Now, the simplest but most stupid way to solve this is using copy / paste. Yes, you simply copy the contents of the method of Class A and paste it into the method of Class C and you’re all set right?

Wrong!

It might work for a while, but one of the first things you *should* be feel itchy about, is code duplication! (along with its problems you get when you want to maintain your code).

So what now?

Solution : Use method for shared behavior
Solution : Use method for shared behavior

Well, when you took the easy road and duplicated your code, you probably wanted to get rid of that duplicate code immidiatly… And how do you do that? .. Yes,  you create a new method which is put in Class A , and accessible from Class C and Bam! Code Duplication gone, and you got what you want…

Another way is to re-think your class hierarchy. You might want to consider to do this:

 

Solution : Change in hierarchy, extend C from A, B from C
Solution : Change in hierarchy, extend C from A, B from C

 

 

Yes, you’ve seen it right. Perhaps you can swap Class B and C.  So C extends now from A, and B from C.

But, if you do that, be careful. You need to know exactly what kind of behavior you wanted in Class B. Most likely you have changed that now by extending from C. Take a good look at what methods B was originally calling from Class A, and if it now calls an overridden method by Class C.

These 2 solutions came up today. For my particular problem I’ve used the first. (no, not copy paste smart ass)

I think the first solution is the easiest, I would not recommend anyone to do the second solution unless you really know what you are doing. If you encounter more of these problems like above, swapping might be better for you.  

Do you got another (better?) solution? Let me know!

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