Question

If I have two classes, A and B,

public class A {
    public int test() {
        return 1;
    }
}

public class B extends A{
    public int test() {
        return 2;
    }
}

If I do: A a1 = new B(), then a1.test() returns 2 instead of 1 as desired.
Is this just a quirk of Java, or is there some reason for this behavior?

Answer 1

No, that is correct (it is due to polymorphism). All method calls operate on object, not reference type.

Here your object is of type B, so test method of class B will be called.