Polymorphism

Polymorphism

Polymorphism is the ability of an object to take on many forms. The most common use of polymorphism in OOP occurs when a parent class reference is used to refer to a child class object. Polymorphism is derived from 2 greek words: poly and morphs. The word "poly" means many and "morphs" means forms. So polymorphism means many forms.

Real life example of polymorphism

Suppose if you are in class room that time you behave like a student, when you are in market at that time you behave like a customer, when you at your home at that time you behave like a son or daughter, Here one person present in different-different behaviors.

How to achieve Polymorphism in Java ?

In java programming the Polymorphism principal is implemented with method overriding concept of java.

Polymorphism principal is divided into two sub principal they are:

Ø  Static or Compile time polymorphism

Ø  Dynamic or Runtime polymorphism

Let us consider the following diagram

Here original form or original method always resides in base class and multiple forms represents overridden method which resides in derived classes.

In the above diagram the sum method which is present in BC class is called original form and the sum() method which are present in DC1 and DC2 are called overridden form hence Sum() method is originally available in only one form and it is further implemented in multiple forms. Hence Sum() method is one of the polymorphism method.