What exactly is a reference variable in Java? How does it differ from other variables?

Question

Can anyone help me understand what is reference variable in Java? I was going through and I don't able to understand this line:

it is the type of object being referred to (not the type of reference variable) that determines which version of an overridden method will be executed.

Answer 1

Basically, it is referred to as polymorphism. You can take the below code as your reference:

public class Person {

    public Person() {

    }

    public void introduceYourself() {

    } 

}

public class Texan extends Person {

    public Texan() {

    }

    public void introduceYourself() {

        System.out.printLn("Howdy y'all!");

    } 

}

public class NewYorker extends Person {

    public NewYorker() {

    }

    public void introduceYourself() {

        System.out.printLn("Yo. You got a problem with that?");

    } 

}

So reference variable will help you determine which instance is called and it will provide the result accordingly.

I hope this will help.

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