15.11.1

Compile Time Step 1: Determine Class or Interface to Search

EXPRESSIONS

Resolving a method name at compile time is more complicated than resolving

a field name because of the possibility of method overloading. Invoking a method

at run time is also more complicated than accessing a field because of the possibil 

ity of instance method overriding.

Determining the method that will be invoked by a method invocation expres 

sion involves several steps. The following three sections describe the compile 

time processing of a method invocation; the determination of the type of the

method invocation expression is described in  15.11.3.

15.11.1   Compile Time Step 1: Determine Class or Interface to Search

The first step in processing a method invocation at compile time is to figure out

the name of the method to be invoked and which class or interface to check for

definitions of methods of that name. There are several cases to consider, depend 

ing on the form that precedes the left parenthesis, as follows:

If the form is

MethodName

, then there are three subcases:

N

If it is a simple name, that is, just an

Identifier

, then the name of the method

is the

Identifier

 and the class or interface to search is the one whose declara 

tion contains the method invocation.

N

If it is a qualified name of the form

TypeName

.

Identifier

, then the name of

the method is the

Identifier

 and the class to search is the one named by the

TypeName

. If

TypeName

 is the name of an interface rather than a class, then

a compile time error occurs, because this form can invoke only

static

methods and interfaces have no

static

 methods.

N

In all other cases, the qualified name has the form

FieldName

.

Identifier

;

then the name of the method is the

Identifier

 and the class or interface to

search is the declared type of the field named by the

FieldName

.

If the form is

Primary

.

Identifier

, then the name of the method is the

Identifier

and the class or interface to be searched is the type of the

Primary

expression.

If the form is

super .

Identifier

, then the name of the method is the

Identifier

and the class to be searched is the superclass of the class whose declaration

contains the method invocation. A compile time error occurs if such a method

invocation occurs in an interface, or in the class

Object

, or in a

static

method, a static initializer, or the initializer for a

static

 variable. It follows

that a method invocation of this form may appear only in a class other than

Object

, and only in the body of an instance method, the body of a construc 

tor, or an initializer for an instance variable.

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