Let's say I have a method called mymethod()

and this method overrides the method of the super class method.

What does it mean to override a method?

does that mean mymethod() ignores everything that is in the method of the super class?

or does that means mymethod() also includes everything in the superclass method?

and when overriding a method, can I only override the methods of the same name, or I can override methods of any name?

thanks, experts @ linux questions!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_overriding - you know, web search still works for me, and this was the very first match in Yahoo.

Generally speaking, the term "override" does, indeed, mean that you are superseding the default behavior by supplying behavior of your own.

Within your handler, you can, if you wish, invoke the behavior (if any...) of the superclass, thereby making it possible for you to define the behavior of your subclass in terms of "augmenting" or "selectively modifying" what (if anything...) the superclass would ordinarily do.

Specifically: your mymethod() would ordinarily supersede the entire behavior of the parent's mymethod(), but it does have the capability to, if it chooses, invoke "the parent's implementation of mymethod() if it has one." It can do that at any point in the execution of its own version of this routine ... or, of course, it can elect not to do so at all. (It doesn't have to know in advance just what that the effect, if any, of doing that might be. It simply has the capability to invoke the underlying functionality, if any, that it has overridden.)

So you can conceivably do things like this: if some_condition then "transport the user to the planet Xarxon," then (do what the superclass's method would normally do) then "feed the dog" else "set the world on fire." (Actual implementation of these small details is left as an exercise to the reader...)