0

Below is a snippet of my code and I can’t decide whether or not it is an example of Polymorphism.

Class hierarchy 1

Within my Player class (This is a subclass of Character) there is a method called showStats(). 

public String showStats(){    // Displays all current stats regarding the player.
    String stats = "<html><br>Name: "+ getName()+ "<br>Type: "+ getCharacterType() + "<br>Health: "+ getHealth() +"<br>Weapon Equipped: "+ getWeaponEquippedName()+"<br>Miles Walked: "+getWalked()+"<br>"+showInventory()+"<br>Level Completed: "+getLevelCompleted();
    return stats;
}

This method is overridden within the Magician and Warrior classes due to exclusive statistics only Warriors and Magicians would possess if they are of that type (Warriors have a power points attribute and Magicians have a steal points attribute).

Magician Class:

public String showStats(){ // Overridden method that shows all player stats including the number of steal points.
    String stats = super.showStats()+"<br>Steal Points: "+getMana()+"</html>";
    return stats; }

Warrior Class:

public String showStats(){ // Overridden method that shows all player stats including the number of Power Points if they are a Warrior.
    String stats = super.showStats()+"<br>Power Points: "+getMana()+"</html>";
    return stats;
}

Within the class Battle I call the showStats() method and the output is not known until the User has selected what character they wish to play as. I just wanted to be certain that this is an example of polymorphism as the character selected is not known until the program has already been compiled and is then selected by the user (i.e. Substitution principle and Late Dynamic Binding).

public static void gameMenu(Player player, int choice, String name)throws FileNotFoundException, IOException, ClassNotFoundException { // Game menu method is for displaying all options (Play game, view game rules, quit) to the user when the game runs.
       //Substitution principle applied to the player object depending upon what character the player wishes to select.
       if (choice == 3) {
           player = new Attack_Warrior();
       }
       else if (choice == 4) {
           player = new Defensive_Warrior();
       }
       else if (choice == 5) {
           player = new Attack_Magician();
       }
       else if (choice == 6) {
           player = new Defensive_Magician();
       }
       else{
           System.out.println("Error. Try again.");
           play(player);                                     // If the user enters an invalid input, the method loops and asks the player to re-enter their input.
       }

Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to hearing your response, Alex

Notorious
  • 41
  • 1
  • 7
  • If you're overriding `showStats` and somewhere is calling it on an instance without knowing which subtype it is, then you're using polymorphism. – khelwood Apr 16 '20 at 22:15
  • @khelwood Even if ShowStats() was not created at a superclass level? It was created within the Player class? – Notorious Apr 16 '20 at 22:16
  • `Player` is a superclass of `Magician` and `Warrior`, right? So `showStats` **is** declared on a superclass (and overridden in subclasses). – khelwood Apr 16 '20 at 22:18
  • @khelwood If you look at the image I put in you can see that Player is a subclass of Character. Player "extends" Character and Warrior "extends" Player. So is this still an example of polymorphism then? Thank you for your time, Alex – Notorious Apr 16 '20 at 22:20
  • Yes, as I said, it is polymorphism with `Player` as the superclass and `Magician` and `Warrior` as the subclasses. The fact that `Player` is also a subclass of some other class is not relevant. – khelwood Apr 16 '20 at 22:22
  • @khelwood I thank you very much for your time. Have a good day! – Notorious Apr 16 '20 at 22:23

1 Answers1

0

It is helpful to annotate the method of your child classes with @Override. If you do not get a compilation error, any code written with the parent type is a proper polymorphic call ;-)

nic
  • 119
  • 4