question about method hiding

Valerie Meunier

Hey

About method hiding, what does this mean: "In method hiding, you can completely redefine the method, while in method overriding, only the implementation"?

Thanks

6 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Rajanikant Hawaldar5y ago
Accepted answer
1. public class My_Parent
2. {
3. public void show()
4. {
5. Console.WriteLine("This is my parent class.");
6. }
7. }
9. // Derived Class
10. public class My_Child : My_Parent
11. {
12. // changed return type may be makes sense and marked as static( may not sense)
13. public new static string show()
14. {
15. return "This is my child class.";
16. }
17. }
+3

Gurpreet Arora5y ago

read it from here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/knowing-when-to-use-override-and-new-keywords

Sachin Singh5y ago

Yes,@Rajnikant sir, method hiding gives us the opportunity to change the method signature, and thus with the same name we can completely redifine the method.

Sachin Singh5y ago

Yes, in method overriding you just re-implement the method, in method hiding too you re-implement the method then why is it called complete redefine?

The answer is because in case of method hiding a new memory location is created, understand the point that it causes a reference type but in overriding, it simply modifies the implementation, doesn't create a new, yes a brand new method.

as the parent doesn't know that his method ever will be re-implement by a child how would it be possible to modify the method without creating a new one, so we have method hiding.

Valerie Meunier5y ago

Sorry, still don't understand. Can you give an example of "completely redefine the method" compared to "redefine implementation" only?

Thanks

Sachin Singh5y ago

You must be already knowing what they do, both do the same thing that is reimplementing a parent class method in the child class. Then the question that arises is what is the difference then?

Override means reimplement the method in the child class with the permission of the parent.

Hiding means reimplement the method in the child class without the permission of the parent.

as in the first case, the parent knows that his method is now overridden by the child class, so you call the child class method with the parent class reference then also the child method executes.

Parent p= new Child();
p.Method(); // child class method will execute
// because parent know that yes I only had given the permission to the child //class, so he reimplemented the method.

but in the case of method hiding, the parent doesn't know that a child has re-implemented his method. so if you call the child method with the parent reference then the parent method executes and not the child method.

Parent p= new Child();
p.Method(); // parent class method will execute
//because the parent had never given him the permission to override the method, the child forcefully overidden the parent's method.