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Field masks field in super class

ID: java/field-masks-super-field
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: warning
Precision: medium
Tags:
   - maintainability
   - readability
Query suites:
   - java-security-and-quality.qls

Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository

A field that has the same name as a field in a superclass hides the field in the superclass. Such hiding might be unintentional, especially if there are no references to the hidden field using the super qualifier. In any case, it makes code more difficult to read.

Recommendation

Ensure that any hiding is intentional. For clarity, it may be better to rename the field in the subclass.

Example

In the following example, the programmer unintentionally added an age field to Employee, which hides the age field in Person. The constructor in Person sets the age field in Person to 20 but the age field in Employee is still 0. This means that the program outputs 0, which is probably not what was intended.

public class FieldMasksSuperField {
    static class Person {
        protected int age;
        public Person(int age)
        {
            this.age = age;
        }
    }

    static class Employee extends Person {
        protected int age;  // This field hides 'Person.age'.
        protected int numberOfYearsEmployed;
        public Employee(int age, int numberOfYearsEmployed)
        {
            super(age);
            this.numberOfYearsEmployed = numberOfYearsEmployed;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Employee e = new Employee(20, 2);
        System.out.println(e.age);
    }
}

To fix this, delete the declaration of age on line 11.

References

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