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Confusing non-overriding of package-private method

ID: java/non-overriding-package-private
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: warning
Precision: medium
Tags:
   - maintainability
   - readability
Query suites:
   - java-security-and-quality.qls

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If a method is declared with default access (that is, not private, protected, nor public), it can only be overridden by methods in the same package. If a method of the same signature is defined in a subclass in a different package, it is a completely separate method and no overriding occurs.

Code like this can be confusing for other programmers, who have to understand that there is no overriding relation, check that the original programmer did not intend one method to override the other, and avoid mixing up the two methods by accident.

Recommendation

In cases where there is intentionally no overriding, the best solution is to rename one or both of the methods to clarify their different purposes.

If one method is supposed to override another method that is declared with default access in another package, the access of the method must be changed to public or protected. Alternatively, the classes must be moved to the same package.

Example

In the following example, PhotoResizerWidget.width does not override Widget.width because one method is in package gui and one method is in package gui.extras.

// File 1
package gui;

abstract class Widget
{
    // ...

    // Return the width (in pixels) of this widget
    int width() {
        // ...
    }

    // ...
}

// File 2
package gui.extras;

class PhotoResizerWidget extends Widget
{
    // ...
 
    // Return the new width (of the photo when resized)
    public int width() {
        // ...
    }
   
    // ...
}

Assuming that no overriding is intentional, one or both of the methods should be renamed. For example, PhotoResizerWidget.width would be better named PhotoResizerWidget.newPhotoWidth.

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