The Java Language Specification, Third Edition

15.12 Method Invocation Expressions EXPRESSIONS
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15.12 Method Invocation Expressions
A method invocation expression is used to invoke a class or instance method.
MethodInvocation:
MethodName ( ArgumentListopt )
Primary . NonWildTypeArgumentsopt Identifier ( ArgumentListopt )
super . NonWildTypeArgumentsopt Identifier ( ArgumentListopt )
ClassName . super . NonWildTypeArgumentsopt Identifier (
ArgumentListopt )
TypeName . NonWildTypeArguments Identifier ( ArgumentListopt )
The definition of ArgumentList from §15.9 is repeated here for convenience:
ArgumentList:
Expression
ArgumentList , Expression
Resolving a method name at compile time is more complicated than resolving
a field name because of the possibility of method overloading. Invoking a method
at run time is also more complicated than accessing a field because of the possibility
of instance method overriding.
Determining the method that will be invoked by a method invocation expression
involves several steps. The following three sections describe the compiletime
processing of a method invocation; the determination of the type of the
method invocation expression is described in §15.12.3.
15.12.1 Compile-Time Step 1: Determine Class or Interface to Search
The first step in processing a method invocation at compile time is to figure out
the name of the method to be invoked and which class or interface to check for
definitions of methods of that name. There are several cases to consider, depending
on the form that precedes the left parenthesis, as follows:
• If the form is MethodName, then there are three subcases:
DRAFT
◆ If it is a simple name, that is, just an Identifier, then the name of the method
is the Identifier. If the Identifier appears within the scope (§6.3) of a visible
method declaration with that name, then there must be an enclosing type
declaration of which that method is a member. Let T be the innermost such
type declaration. The class or interface to search is T.
◆ If it is a qualified name of the form TypeName . Identifier, then the name of
the method is the Identifier and the class to search is the one named by the