Why can t static methods be abstract in Java

Question

The question is in Java why can t I define an abstract static method  for example  abstract class foo       abstract void bar         lt -- this is ok     abstract static void bar2       lt -- this isn t why

User · Answer

Because abstract is a keyword which is applied over Abstract methods do not specify a body  And If we talk about static keyword it belongs to class area

User · Answer

You can t override a static method  so making it abstract would be meaningless  Moreover  a static method in an abstract class would belong to that class  and not the overriding class  so couldn t be used anyway

User · Answer

You can do this with interfaces in Java 8   This is the official documentation about it   https   docs oracle com javase tutorial java IandI defaultmethods html

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because if you are using any static member or static variable in class it will load at class loading time

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You can t override a static method  so making it abstract would be meaningless  Moreover  a static method in an abstract class would belong to that class  and not the overriding class  so couldn t be used anyway

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The idea of having an abstract static method would be that you can t use that particular abstract class directly for that method  but only the first derivative would be allowed to implement that static method  or for generics  the actual class of the generic you use    That way  you could create for example a sortableObject abstract class or even interface with  auto- abstract static methods  which defines the parameters of sort options   public interface SortableObject       public  abstract  static String    getSortableTypes        public String getSortableValueByType String type       Now you can define a sortable object that can be sorted by the main types which are the same for all these objects   public class MyDataObject implements SortableObject       final static String    SORT TYPES              Name   Date of Birth            static long newDataIndex   0L        String fullName       String sortableDate       long dataIndex   -1L       public MyDataObject String name  int year  int month  int day            if name    null    name length      0  throw new IllegalArgumentException  Null empty name not allowed             if  validateDate year month day   throw new IllegalArgumentException  Date parameters do not compose a legal date             this fullName   name           this sortableDate   MyUtils createSortableDate year month day           this dataIndex   MyDataObject newDataIndex               public String toString             return    this dataIndex     this fullName      this sortableDate                    override SortableObject      public static String    getSortableTypes     return SORT TYPES         public String getSortableValueByType String type            int index   MyUtils getStringArrayIndex SORT TYPES  type           switch index                 case 0  return this name                case 1  return this sortableDate                     return toString       in the order they were created when compared           Now you can create a  public class SortableList lt T extends SortableObject gt     that can retrieve the types  build a pop-up menu to select a type to sort on and resort the list by getting the data from that type  as well as hainv an add function that  when a sort type has been selected  can auto-sort new items in  Note that the instance of SortableList can directly access the static method of  T    String    MenuItems   T getSortableTypes      The problem with having to use an instance is that the SortableList may not have items yet  but already need to provide the preferred sorting   Cheerio  Olaf

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An abstract class cannot have a static method because abstraction is done to achieve DYNAMIC BINDING while static methods are statically binded to their functionality A static method means behavior not dependent on an instance variable  so no instance object is required Just the class Static methods belongs to class and not object  They are stored in a memory area known as PERMGEN from where it is shared with every object  Methods in abstract class are dynamically binded to their functionality

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Assume there are two classes  Parent and Child  Parent is abstract  The declarations are as follows   abstract class Parent       abstract void run       class Child extends Parent       void run          This means that any instance of Parent must specify how run   is executed   However  assume now that Parent is not abstract   class Parent       static void run          This means that Parent run   will execute the static method   The definition of an abstract method is  A method that is declared but not implemented   which means it doesn t return anything itself   The definition of a static method is  A method that returns the same value for the same parameters regardless of the instance on which it is called    An abstract method s return value will change as the instance changes  A static method will not  A static abstract method is pretty much a method where the return value is constant  but does not return anything  This is a logical contradiction   Also  there is really not much of a reason for a static abstract method

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I also asked the same question   here is why  Since Abstract class says  it will not give implementation and allow subclass to give it  so Subclass has to override the methods of Superclass     RULE NO 1 - A static method cannot be overridden   Because static members and methods are compile time elements   that is why Overloading Compile time Polymorphism  of static methods are allowed rather then Overriding  Runtime Polymorphism   So   they cant be Abstract     There is no thing like abstract static   lt --- Not allowed in Java Universe

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As per Java doc      A static method is a method that is associated with the class in which   it is defined rather than with any object  Every instance of the class   shares its static methods   In Java 8  along with default methods static methods are also allowed in an interface  This makes it easier for us to organize helper methods in our libraries  We can keep static methods specific to an interface in the same interface rather than in a separate class    A nice example of this is   list sort ordering     instead of  Collections sort list  ordering     Another example of using static methods is also given in doc itself   public interface TimeClient                  static public ZoneId getZoneId  String zoneString            try               return ZoneId of zoneString             catch  DateTimeException e                System err println  Invalid time zone      zoneString                      using default time zone instead                 return ZoneId systemDefault                         default public ZonedDateTime getZonedDateTime String zoneString            return ZonedDateTime of getLocalDateTime    getZoneId zoneString

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Because if a class extends an abstract class then it has to override abstract methods and that is mandatory  And since static methods are class methods resolved at compile time whereas overridden methods are instance methods resolved at runtime and following dynamic polymorphism

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This is a terrible language design and really no reason as to why it can t be possible    In fact  here is an implementation on how it CAN be done in JAVA    public class Main            public static void main String   args                       This is done once in your application  usually at startup                 Request setRequest new RequestImplementationOther                      Request doSomething                       public static final class RequestImplementationDefault extends Request                    Override                 void doSomethingImpl                             System out println  I am doing something AAAAAA                                         public static final class RequestImplementaionOther extends Request                    Override                 void doSomethingImpl                             System out println  I am doing something BBBBBB                                            Static methods in here can be overriden         public static abstract class Request                    abstract void doSomethingImpl                        Static method                 public static void doSomething                             getRequest   doSomethingImpl                                       private static Request request                  private static Request getRequest                                If setRequest is never called prior  it will default to a default implementation  Of course you could ignore that too                           if   request    null                                     return request   new RequestImplementationDefault                                                      return request                                    public static Request setRequest Request r                           return request   r                                                     Old example below                    Look for getRequest  and getRequestImpl     setInstance can be called to alter the implementation before the call is made       import java io IOException   import javax servlet http HttpServletRequest  import javax servlet http HttpServletResponse  import javax servlet http HttpSession   import org springframework web context request RequestContextHolder  import org springframework web context request ServletRequestAttributes           author Mo  Joseph     date 16 mar 2012       public abstract class Core            ---------------------------------------------------------------             private static Core singleton       private static Core getInstance             if   singleton    null               setInstance  new Core CoreDefaultImpl          See bottom for CoreDefaultImpl          return singleton                 public static void setInstance Core core            Core singleton   core               ---------------------------------------------------------------                   Static public method     public static HttpServletRequest getRequest                   return getInstance   getRequestImpl                   A new implementation would override this one and call setInstance above with that implementation instance     protected abstract HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                                            CLASSES                                                                                                                            Two example implementations  to alter getRequest   call behaviour            getInstance   have to be called in all static methods for this to work           static method getRequest is altered through implementation of getRequestImpl                                                                                        Static inner class CoreDefaultImpl        public static class CoreDefaultImpl extends Core            protected HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                 return   ServletRequestAttributes  RequestContextHolder getRequestAttributes    getRequest                              Static inner class CoreTestImpl   Alternative implementation        public static class CoreTestImpl extends Core            protected HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                 return new MockedRequest                                Used as follow    static        Core setSingleton new Core CoreDefaultImpl              Or       Core setSingleton new Core CoreTestImpl              Later in the application you might use       Core getRequest

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Assume there are two classes  Parent and Child  Parent is abstract  The declarations are as follows   abstract class Parent       abstract void run       class Child extends Parent       void run          This means that any instance of Parent must specify how run   is executed   However  assume now that Parent is not abstract   class Parent       static void run          This means that Parent run   will execute the static method   The definition of an abstract method is  A method that is declared but not implemented   which means it doesn t return anything itself   The definition of a static method is  A method that returns the same value for the same parameters regardless of the instance on which it is called    An abstract method s return value will change as the instance changes  A static method will not  A static abstract method is pretty much a method where the return value is constant  but does not return anything  This is a logical contradiction   Also  there is really not much of a reason for a static abstract method

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I see that there are a god-zillion answers already but I don t see any practical solutions  Of course this is a real problem and there is no good reason for excluding this syntax in Java  Since the original question lacks a context where this may be need  I provide both a context and a solution   Suppose you have a static method in a bunch of classes that are identical  These methods call a static method that is class specific   class C1       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         private static void doMoreWork int k               code specific to class C1         class C2       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         private static void doMoreWork int k               code specific to class C2           doWork   methods in C1 and C2 are identical  There may be a lot of these calsses  C3 C4 etc  If static abstract was allowed  you d eliminate the duplicate code by doing something like   abstract class C       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                          static abstract void doMoreWork int k      class C1 extends C       private static void doMoreWork int k               code for class C1          class C2 extends C       private static void doMoreWork int k               code for class C2           but this would not compile because static abstract combination is not allowed  However  this can be circumvented with static class construct  which is allowed   abstract class C       void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         abstract void doMoreWork int k     class C1       private static final C c   new  C               Override void doMoreWork int k                System out println  code for C1                         public static void doWork             c doWork            class C2       private static final C c   new C              Override void doMoreWork int k                System out println  code for C2                         public static void doWork             c doWork              With this solution the only code that is duplicated is      public static void doWork             c doWork

User · Answer

Because  abstract  means   Implements no functionality   and  static  means   There is functionality even if you don t have an object instance   And that s a logical contradiction

User · Answer

Regular methods can be abstract when they are meant to be overridden by subclasses and provided with functionality   Imagine the class Foo is extended by Bar1  Bar2  Bar3 etc  So  each will have their own version of the abstract class according to their needs    Now  static methods by definition belong to the class  they have nothing to do with the objects of the class or the objects of its subclasses  They don t even need them to exist  they can be used without instantiating the classes  Hence  they need to be ready-to-go and cannot depend on the subclasses to add functionality to them

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Regular methods can be abstract when they are meant to be overridden by subclasses and provided with functionality   Imagine the class Foo is extended by Bar1  Bar2  Bar3 etc  So  each will have their own version of the abstract class according to their needs    Now  static methods by definition belong to the class  they have nothing to do with the objects of the class or the objects of its subclasses  They don t even need them to exist  they can be used without instantiating the classes  Hence  they need to be ready-to-go and cannot depend on the subclasses to add functionality to them

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I also asked the same question   here is why  Since Abstract class says  it will not give implementation and allow subclass to give it  so Subclass has to override the methods of Superclass     RULE NO 1 - A static method cannot be overridden   Because static members and methods are compile time elements   that is why Overloading Compile time Polymorphism  of static methods are allowed rather then Overriding  Runtime Polymorphism   So   they cant be Abstract     There is no thing like abstract static   lt --- Not allowed in Java Universe

User · Answer

A static method can be called without an instance of the class  In your example you can call foo bar2    but not foo bar    because for bar you need an instance  Following code would work   foo var   new ImplementsFoo    var bar      If you call a static method  it will be executed always the same code  In the above example  even if you redefine bar2 in ImplementsFoo  a call to var bar2   would execute foo bar2     If bar2 now has no implementation  that s what abstract means   you can call a method without implementation  That s very harmful

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Declaring a method as static means we can call that method by its class name and if that class is abstract as well  it makes no sense to call it as it does not contain any body  and hence we cannot declare a method both as static and abstract

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An abstract method is defined only so that it can be overridden in a subclass  However  static methods can not be overridden  Therefore  it is a compile-time error to have an abstract  static method   Now the next question is why static methods can not be overridden   It s because static methods belongs to a particular class and not to its instance  If you try to override a static method you will not get any compilation or runtime error but compiler would just hide the static method of superclass

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Because  abstract  means   Implements no functionality   and  static  means   There is functionality even if you don t have an object instance   And that s a logical contradiction

User · Answer

A static method can be called without an instance of the class  In your example you can call foo bar2    but not foo bar    because for bar you need an instance  Following code would work   foo var   new ImplementsFoo    var bar      If you call a static method  it will be executed always the same code  In the above example  even if you redefine bar2 in ImplementsFoo  a call to var bar2   would execute foo bar2     If bar2 now has no implementation  that s what abstract means   you can call a method without implementation  That s very harmful

User · Answer

The abstract annotation to a method indicates that the method MUST be overriden in a subclass   In Java  a static member  method or field  cannot be overridden by subclasses  this is not necessarily true in other object oriented languages  see SmallTalk    A static member may be hidden  but that is fundamentally different than overridden   Since static members cannot be overriden in a subclass  the abstract annotation cannot be applied to them   As an aside - other languages do support static inheritance  just like instance inheritance   From a syntax perspective  those languages usually require the class name to be included in the statement   For example  in Java  assuming you are writing code in ClassA  these are equivalent statements  if methodA   is a static method  and there is no instance method with the same signature    ClassA methodA      and  methodA      In SmallTalk  the class name is not optional  so the syntax is  note that SmallTalk does not use the   to separate the  subject  and the  verb   but instead uses it as the statemend terminator    ClassA methodA    Because the class name is always required  the correct  version  of the method can always be determined by traversing the class hierarchy   For what it s worth  I do occasionally miss static inheritance  and was bitten by the lack of static inheritance in Java when I first started with it   Additionally  SmallTalk is duck-typed  and thus doesn t support program-by-contract    Thus  it has no abstract modifier for class members

User · Answer

Because abstract mehods always need implementation by subclass But if you make any method to static then overriding is not possible for this method Example abstract class foo       abstract static void bar2         class Bar extends foo         in this if you override foo class static method then it will give error

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A static method  by definition  doesn t need to know this  Thus  it cannot be a virtual method  that is overloaded according to dynamic subclass information available through this   instead  a static method overload is solely based on info available at compile time  this means  once you refer a static method of superclass  you call namely the superclass method  but never a subclass method    According to this  abstract static methods would be quite useless because you will never have its reference substituted by some defined body

User · Answer

Because  abstract  means   Implements no functionality   and  static  means   There is functionality even if you don t have an object instance   And that s a logical contradiction

User · Answer

I believe I have found the answer to this question  in the form of why an interface s methods  which work like abstract methods in a parent class  can t be static  Here is the full answer  not mine   Basically static methods can be bound at compile time  since to call them you need to specify a class  This is different than instance methods  for which the class of the reference from which you re calling the method may be unknown at compile time  thus which code block is called can only be determined at runtime    If you re calling a static method  you already know the class where it s implemented  or any direct subclasses of it  If you define  abstract class Foo       abstract static void bar       class Foo2        Override     static void bar          Then any Foo bar    call is obviously illegal  and you will always use Foo2 bar      With this in mind  the only purpose of a static abstract method would be to enforce subclasses to implement such a method  You might initially think this is VERY wrong  but if you have a generic type parameter  lt E extends MySuperClass gt  it would be nice to guarantee via interface that E can  doSomething    Keep in mind that due to type erasure generics only exist at compile time   So  would it be useful  Yes  and maybe that is why Java 8 is allowing static methods in interfaces  though only with a default implementation   Why not abstract static methods with a default implementation in classes  Simply because an abstract method with a default implementation is actually a concrete method   Why not abstract interface static methods with no default implementation  Apparently  merely because of the way Java identifies which code block it has to execute  first part of my answer

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Because abstract class is an OOPS concept and static members are not the part of OOPS     Now the thing is we can declare static complete methods in interface and we can execute interface by declaring main method inside an interface  interface Demo      public static void main String    args         System out println  I am from interface

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This is a terrible language design and really no reason as to why it can t be possible    In fact  here is an implementation on how it CAN be done in JAVA    public class Main            public static void main String   args                       This is done once in your application  usually at startup                 Request setRequest new RequestImplementationOther                      Request doSomething                       public static final class RequestImplementationDefault extends Request                    Override                 void doSomethingImpl                             System out println  I am doing something AAAAAA                                         public static final class RequestImplementaionOther extends Request                    Override                 void doSomethingImpl                             System out println  I am doing something BBBBBB                                            Static methods in here can be overriden         public static abstract class Request                    abstract void doSomethingImpl                        Static method                 public static void doSomething                             getRequest   doSomethingImpl                                       private static Request request                  private static Request getRequest                                If setRequest is never called prior  it will default to a default implementation  Of course you could ignore that too                           if   request    null                                     return request   new RequestImplementationDefault                                                      return request                                    public static Request setRequest Request r                           return request   r                                                     Old example below                    Look for getRequest  and getRequestImpl     setInstance can be called to alter the implementation before the call is made       import java io IOException   import javax servlet http HttpServletRequest  import javax servlet http HttpServletResponse  import javax servlet http HttpSession   import org springframework web context request RequestContextHolder  import org springframework web context request ServletRequestAttributes           author Mo  Joseph     date 16 mar 2012       public abstract class Core            ---------------------------------------------------------------             private static Core singleton       private static Core getInstance             if   singleton    null               setInstance  new Core CoreDefaultImpl          See bottom for CoreDefaultImpl          return singleton                 public static void setInstance Core core            Core singleton   core               ---------------------------------------------------------------                   Static public method     public static HttpServletRequest getRequest                   return getInstance   getRequestImpl                   A new implementation would override this one and call setInstance above with that implementation instance     protected abstract HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                                            CLASSES                                                                                                                            Two example implementations  to alter getRequest   call behaviour            getInstance   have to be called in all static methods for this to work           static method getRequest is altered through implementation of getRequestImpl                                                                                        Static inner class CoreDefaultImpl        public static class CoreDefaultImpl extends Core            protected HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                 return   ServletRequestAttributes  RequestContextHolder getRequestAttributes    getRequest                              Static inner class CoreTestImpl   Alternative implementation        public static class CoreTestImpl extends Core            protected HttpServletRequest getRequestImpl                 return new MockedRequest                                Used as follow    static        Core setSingleton new Core CoreDefaultImpl              Or       Core setSingleton new Core CoreTestImpl              Later in the application you might use       Core getRequest

User · Answer

Poor language design  It would be much more effective to call directly a static abstract method than creating an instance just for using that abstract method  Especially true when using an abstract class as a workaround for enum inability to extend  which is another poor design example  Hope they solve those limitations in a next release

User · Answer

As abstract methods belong to the class and cannot be overridden by the implementing class Even if there is a static method with same signature   it hides the method  does not override it  So it is immaterial to declare the abstract method as static as it will never get the body Thus  compile time error

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The abstract annotation to a method indicates that the method MUST be overriden in a subclass   In Java  a static member  method or field  cannot be overridden by subclasses  this is not necessarily true in other object oriented languages  see SmallTalk    A static member may be hidden  but that is fundamentally different than overridden   Since static members cannot be overriden in a subclass  the abstract annotation cannot be applied to them   As an aside - other languages do support static inheritance  just like instance inheritance   From a syntax perspective  those languages usually require the class name to be included in the statement   For example  in Java  assuming you are writing code in ClassA  these are equivalent statements  if methodA   is a static method  and there is no instance method with the same signature    ClassA methodA      and  methodA      In SmallTalk  the class name is not optional  so the syntax is  note that SmallTalk does not use the   to separate the  subject  and the  verb   but instead uses it as the statemend terminator    ClassA methodA    Because the class name is always required  the correct  version  of the method can always be determined by traversing the class hierarchy   For what it s worth  I do occasionally miss static inheritance  and was bitten by the lack of static inheritance in Java when I first started with it   Additionally  SmallTalk is duck-typed  and thus doesn t support program-by-contract    Thus  it has no abstract modifier for class members

User · Answer

You can do this with interfaces in Java 8   This is the official documentation about it   https   docs oracle com javase tutorial java IandI defaultmethods html

User · Answer

First  a key point about abstract classes -  An abstract class cannot be instantiated  see wiki   So  you can t create any instance of an abstract class    Now  the way java deals with static methods is by sharing the method with all the instances of that class    So  If you can t instantiate a class  that class can t have abstract static methods since an abstract method begs to be extended    Boom

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Because if a class extends an abstract class then it has to override abstract methods and that is mandatory  And since static methods are class methods resolved at compile time whereas overridden methods are instance methods resolved at runtime and following dynamic polymorphism

User · Answer

The abstract annotation to a method indicates that the method MUST be overriden in a subclass   In Java  a static member  method or field  cannot be overridden by subclasses  this is not necessarily true in other object oriented languages  see SmallTalk    A static member may be hidden  but that is fundamentally different than overridden   Since static members cannot be overriden in a subclass  the abstract annotation cannot be applied to them   As an aside - other languages do support static inheritance  just like instance inheritance   From a syntax perspective  those languages usually require the class name to be included in the statement   For example  in Java  assuming you are writing code in ClassA  these are equivalent statements  if methodA   is a static method  and there is no instance method with the same signature    ClassA methodA      and  methodA      In SmallTalk  the class name is not optional  so the syntax is  note that SmallTalk does not use the   to separate the  subject  and the  verb   but instead uses it as the statemend terminator    ClassA methodA    Because the class name is always required  the correct  version  of the method can always be determined by traversing the class hierarchy   For what it s worth  I do occasionally miss static inheritance  and was bitten by the lack of static inheritance in Java when I first started with it   Additionally  SmallTalk is duck-typed  and thus doesn t support program-by-contract    Thus  it has no abstract modifier for class members

User · Answer

As abstract methods belong to the class and cannot be overridden by the implementing class Even if there is a static method with same signature   it hides the method  does not override it  So it is immaterial to declare the abstract method as static as it will never get the body Thus  compile time error

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Because abstract is a keyword which is applied over Abstract methods do not specify a body  And If we talk about static keyword it belongs to class area

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Because  abstract  means the method is meant to be overridden and one can t override  static  methods

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A static method  by definition  doesn t need to know this  Thus  it cannot be a virtual method  that is overloaded according to dynamic subclass information available through this   instead  a static method overload is solely based on info available at compile time  this means  once you refer a static method of superclass  you call namely the superclass method  but never a subclass method    According to this  abstract static methods would be quite useless because you will never have its reference substituted by some defined body

User · Answer

Poor language design  It would be much more effective to call directly a static abstract method than creating an instance just for using that abstract method  Especially true when using an abstract class as a workaround for enum inability to extend  which is another poor design example  Hope they solve those limitations in a next release

User · Answer

Because abstract class is an OOPS concept and static members are not the part of OOPS     Now the thing is we can declare static complete methods in interface and we can execute interface by declaring main method inside an interface  interface Demo      public static void main String    args         System out println  I am from interface

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A static method can be called without an instance of the class  In your example you can call foo bar2    but not foo bar    because for bar you need an instance  Following code would work   foo var   new ImplementsFoo    var bar      If you call a static method  it will be executed always the same code  In the above example  even if you redefine bar2 in ImplementsFoo  a call to var bar2   would execute foo bar2     If bar2 now has no implementation  that s what abstract means   you can call a method without implementation  That s very harmful

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First  a key point about abstract classes -  An abstract class cannot be instantiated  see wiki   So  you can t create any instance of an abstract class    Now  the way java deals with static methods is by sharing the method with all the instances of that class    So  If you can t instantiate a class  that class can t have abstract static methods since an abstract method begs to be extended    Boom

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Because abstract mehods always need implementation by subclass But if you make any method to static then overriding is not possible for this method Example abstract class foo       abstract static void bar2         class Bar extends foo         in this if you override foo class static method then it will give error

User · Answer

Because  abstract  means the method is meant to be overridden and one can t override  static  methods

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Because  abstract  means   Implements no functionality   and  static  means   There is functionality even if you don t have an object instance   And that s a logical contradiction

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The abstract annotation to a method indicates that the method MUST be overriden in a subclass   In Java  a static member  method or field  cannot be overridden by subclasses  this is not necessarily true in other object oriented languages  see SmallTalk    A static member may be hidden  but that is fundamentally different than overridden   Since static members cannot be overriden in a subclass  the abstract annotation cannot be applied to them   As an aside - other languages do support static inheritance  just like instance inheritance   From a syntax perspective  those languages usually require the class name to be included in the statement   For example  in Java  assuming you are writing code in ClassA  these are equivalent statements  if methodA   is a static method  and there is no instance method with the same signature    ClassA methodA      and  methodA      In SmallTalk  the class name is not optional  so the syntax is  note that SmallTalk does not use the   to separate the  subject  and the  verb   but instead uses it as the statemend terminator    ClassA methodA    Because the class name is always required  the correct  version  of the method can always be determined by traversing the class hierarchy   For what it s worth  I do occasionally miss static inheritance  and was bitten by the lack of static inheritance in Java when I first started with it   Additionally  SmallTalk is duck-typed  and thus doesn t support program-by-contract    Thus  it has no abstract modifier for class members

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I believe I have found the answer to this question  in the form of why an interface s methods  which work like abstract methods in a parent class  can t be static  Here is the full answer  not mine   Basically static methods can be bound at compile time  since to call them you need to specify a class  This is different than instance methods  for which the class of the reference from which you re calling the method may be unknown at compile time  thus which code block is called can only be determined at runtime    If you re calling a static method  you already know the class where it s implemented  or any direct subclasses of it  If you define  abstract class Foo       abstract static void bar       class Foo2        Override     static void bar          Then any Foo bar    call is obviously illegal  and you will always use Foo2 bar      With this in mind  the only purpose of a static abstract method would be to enforce subclasses to implement such a method  You might initially think this is VERY wrong  but if you have a generic type parameter  lt E extends MySuperClass gt  it would be nice to guarantee via interface that E can  doSomething    Keep in mind that due to type erasure generics only exist at compile time   So  would it be useful  Yes  and maybe that is why Java 8 is allowing static methods in interfaces  though only with a default implementation   Why not abstract static methods with a default implementation in classes  Simply because an abstract method with a default implementation is actually a concrete method   Why not abstract interface static methods with no default implementation  Apparently  merely because of the way Java identifies which code block it has to execute  first part of my answer

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because if you are using any static member or static variable in class it will load at class loading time

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I see that there are a god-zillion answers already but I don t see any practical solutions  Of course this is a real problem and there is no good reason for excluding this syntax in Java  Since the original question lacks a context where this may be need  I provide both a context and a solution   Suppose you have a static method in a bunch of classes that are identical  These methods call a static method that is class specific   class C1       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         private static void doMoreWork int k               code specific to class C1         class C2       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         private static void doMoreWork int k               code specific to class C2           doWork   methods in C1 and C2 are identical  There may be a lot of these calsses  C3 C4 etc  If static abstract was allowed  you d eliminate the duplicate code by doing something like   abstract class C       static void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                          static abstract void doMoreWork int k      class C1 extends C       private static void doMoreWork int k               code for class C1          class C2 extends C       private static void doMoreWork int k               code for class C2           but this would not compile because static abstract combination is not allowed  However  this can be circumvented with static class construct  which is allowed   abstract class C       void doWork                         for  int k  list              doMoreWork k                         abstract void doMoreWork int k     class C1       private static final C c   new  C               Override void doMoreWork int k                System out println  code for C1                         public static void doWork             c doWork            class C2       private static final C c   new C              Override void doMoreWork int k                System out println  code for C2                         public static void doWork             c doWork              With this solution the only code that is duplicated is      public static void doWork             c doWork

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You can t override a static method  so making it abstract would be meaningless  Moreover  a static method in an abstract class would belong to that class  and not the overriding class  so couldn t be used anyway

User · Answer

You can t override a static method  so making it abstract would be meaningless  Moreover  a static method in an abstract class would belong to that class  and not the overriding class  so couldn t be used anyway

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As per Java doc      A static method is a method that is associated with the class in which   it is defined rather than with any object  Every instance of the class   shares its static methods   In Java 8  along with default methods static methods are also allowed in an interface  This makes it easier for us to organize helper methods in our libraries  We can keep static methods specific to an interface in the same interface rather than in a separate class    A nice example of this is   list sort ordering     instead of  Collections sort list  ordering     Another example of using static methods is also given in doc itself   public interface TimeClient                  static public ZoneId getZoneId  String zoneString            try               return ZoneId of zoneString             catch  DateTimeException e                System err println  Invalid time zone      zoneString                      using default time zone instead                 return ZoneId systemDefault                         default public ZonedDateTime getZonedDateTime String zoneString            return ZonedDateTime of getLocalDateTime    getZoneId zoneString

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An abstract class cannot have a static method because abstraction is done to achieve DYNAMIC BINDING while static methods are statically binded to their functionality A static method means behavior not dependent on an instance variable  so no instance object is required Just the class Static methods belongs to class and not object  They are stored in a memory area known as PERMGEN from where it is shared with every object  Methods in abstract class are dynamically binded to their functionality

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Declaring a method as static means we can call that method by its class name and if that class is abstract as well  it makes no sense to call it as it does not contain any body  and hence we cannot declare a method both as static and abstract

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A static method can be called without an instance of the class  In your example you can call foo bar2    but not foo bar    because for bar you need an instance  Following code would work   foo var   new ImplementsFoo    var bar      If you call a static method  it will be executed always the same code  In the above example  even if you redefine bar2 in ImplementsFoo  a call to var bar2   would execute foo bar2     If bar2 now has no implementation  that s what abstract means   you can call a method without implementation  That s very harmful

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An abstract method is defined only so that it can be overridden in a subclass  However  static methods can not be overridden  Therefore  it is a compile-time error to have an abstract  static method   Now the next question is why static methods can not be overridden   It s because static methods belongs to a particular class and not to its instance  If you try to override a static method you will not get any compilation or runtime error but compiler would just hide the static method of superclass

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The idea of having an abstract static method would be that you can t use that particular abstract class directly for that method  but only the first derivative would be allowed to implement that static method  or for generics  the actual class of the generic you use    That way  you could create for example a sortableObject abstract class or even interface with  auto- abstract static methods  which defines the parameters of sort options   public interface SortableObject       public  abstract  static String    getSortableTypes        public String getSortableValueByType String type       Now you can define a sortable object that can be sorted by the main types which are the same for all these objects   public class MyDataObject implements SortableObject       final static String    SORT TYPES              Name   Date of Birth            static long newDataIndex   0L        String fullName       String sortableDate       long dataIndex   -1L       public MyDataObject String name  int year  int month  int day            if name    null    name length      0  throw new IllegalArgumentException  Null empty name not allowed             if  validateDate year month day   throw new IllegalArgumentException  Date parameters do not compose a legal date             this fullName   name           this sortableDate   MyUtils createSortableDate year month day           this dataIndex   MyDataObject newDataIndex               public String toString             return    this dataIndex     this fullName      this sortableDate                    override SortableObject      public static String    getSortableTypes     return SORT TYPES         public String getSortableValueByType String type            int index   MyUtils getStringArrayIndex SORT TYPES  type           switch index                 case 0  return this name                case 1  return this sortableDate                     return toString       in the order they were created when compared           Now you can create a  public class SortableList lt T extends SortableObject gt     that can retrieve the types  build a pop-up menu to select a type to sort on and resort the list by getting the data from that type  as well as hainv an add function that  when a sort type has been selected  can auto-sort new items in  Note that the instance of SortableList can directly access the static method of  T    String    MenuItems   T getSortableTypes      The problem with having to use an instance is that the SortableList may not have items yet  but already need to provide the preferred sorting   Cheerio  Olaf

[java] Why can't static methods be abstract in Java?

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