Hello, I'm having a problem accessing the right member variables :)

public class Animal { static int type; }
public class Cat extends Animal { static int type = 1; }

This works, Animal.type and Cat.type refer to two different things. In
practice Animal.type would never be referenced. The reason it is
defined at all is so the code compiles, because also in class animal,
is the show method.

public class Animal {
 static int type;

 public void show()
 {
   System.out.println(type);
 }
}

So here is the problem, Cat.type is equal to 1, but Cat.show() prints
0.

Explained anorther way - class Cat contains a static array filled with
different kinds of cats. And the show function in Animal picks one type
of animal at random from the static array "animals" array. class Cat
overrides the animals array with it's own list, but does not override
show(). Unfortunately Cat.show() doesen't come up with a list of Cats,
it comes up empty because it's accessing Animal.animals[], not
Cat.animals[].

I don't know how to make it do what I want. I want Cat.show() to print
0. But I don't want to *cut and paste* code from the superclass to the
subclass. Anyone can cut and paste, but isn't that what inheritance is
supposed to aviod? Cutting and pasting?

Simply overriding show in every kind of animal class to set type and
then call super.show() is still cutting and pasting, and just feels
like I'm doing something wrong.

original reasoning:
"Newly declared fields can hide fields declared in a superclass or
superinterface. Newly declared class members and interface members can
hide class or interface members declared in a superclass or
superinterface. Newly declared methods can hide, implement, or override
methods declared in a superclass or superinterface."
(from
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/classes.doc.html)

Oliver