Question

I have the following class:

public class B {

    public void print() {
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        B B = new B();
        B.print();
    }

}

I was wondering why the compiler didn’t give an error saying it’s not a static method. How will it distinguish between the class level and instance level when we have the object with the same as the class?

Answer 1

Because you are accessing the method on an instance of the class. Incidentally the name of the instance is the same as the class name, but since you don’t have a static method with this name, the compiler assumes the correct – i.e. an instance method.

If you define the method to be static, then it will again assume the only possible thing – calling a static method on the B class, because the instance doesn’t have such a method.

And ultimately, you can’t have both a static and a non-static method with the same name.