Overloading, Overriding, Runtime Types and Object Orientation - Anonymous Classes

• anonymous classes are classes which have no name
• they are declared and defined using the name of the class or interface they extend ie new Enumeration()
• no modifiers, extends or implements are allowed
• if any parameters are passed the superclass must have a corresponding constructor
• Anonymous classes do not have constructors of their own as constructors always take the name of the class and Anonymous classes have no name
• even though you cannot use an extends clause, you can extend the superclass by overriding methods

  you cannot 'overload' or 'add' new methods. See example code

• Once you create an anonymous class and override a method, that method is used until the class is unloaded
• they are most often used to implement an event listener interface or extend an adapter class

Example Code

• TestAnonymous.java
• TestAnonymousClass.java