Question

When I extend a class I want to override methods and change their accessibility like a protected method should be public in a certain class. When I compile it says: “Incompatible override”. I can’t reduce nor can I increase the visibility.

Reducing wouldn’t make sense and I don’t need it but I was able to increase method visibility in Java. Why not in ActionScript 3 ?

public class OldClass
{
    protected function doStuff() : void
    {}
}
public class NewClass extends OldClass
{
    override public function doStuff() : void
    {}
}

Am I doing something wrong ?

Answer 1

No, you’re not doing anything wrong. That’s just how the language works. From the documentation (emphasis added):

Static methods are not inherited and cannot be overridden. Instance methods, however, are inherited by subclasses and can be overridden as long as the following two criteria are met:

• …

• The override method must have the same level of access control as the base class method. Methods marked as internal have the same level of access control as methods that have no access control specifier.

• The override method must have the same number of parameters as the base class method.

• The override method parameters must have the same data type annotations as the parameters in the base class method.

• The override method must have the same return type as the base class method.