Possibility to override parent class variables with child class variables in super constructor

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Unless I’m doing it wrong, you can’t override parent (abstract) class member variable from the child class

Describe the solution you’d like Being able to override (abstract) parent member variables with child class member variables of the same name, maybe with an “override” keyword This would enable things like this :

public abstract class CustomUnitDefinition extends UnitDefinition
  string name = "Default Unit Name"
  construct( int unitId, int origID )
    super( unitId, origID )
    setName( name ) // Since you can't instanciate CustomUnitDefinition , setName should be called with the value of MyUnit.name

public class MyUnit extends CustomUnitDefinition 
  string name = "Child Unit Name" // Should override CustomUnitDefinition .name
  construct( int unitId, int origID )
    super( unitId, origID )
    // setName( "Child Unit Name" ) gets called from parent CustomUnitDefinition construct()

[Frotty]

I still don’t understand why you cannot simply move the variable assignments to the constructor?

Doesn’t work if those values are used in the super-constructor.

[Frotty]

That’s the best possible solution with the current language features, yes. Not as sexy as I would like it to be, but it works.

I suppose what’s best and the sexiness here lies in the eye of the beholder. I personally would prefer a different solution here. If you don’t need access to the PigDefinition class/type at runtime, you could also get rid of it completely in favor of a builder pattern (see cascade operator).

But that’s why this issue is a feature request and not a bug report :p

Fair enough.