9/8/25, 12:16 AM Constructor Overloading in Java - GeeksforGeeks
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Constructor Overloading in Java
Last Updated : 16 Jun, 2023
Java supports Constructor Overloading in addition to overloading
methods. In Java, overloaded constructor is called based on the
parameters specified when a new is executed.
When do we need Constructor Overloading?
Sometimes there is a need of initializing an object in different ways.
This can be done using constructor overloading.
For example, the Thread class has 8 types of constructors. If we do
not want to specify anything about a thread then we can simply use
the default constructor of the Thread class, however, if we need to
specify the thread name, then we may call the parameterized
constructor of the Thread class with a String args like this:
Thread t= new Thread (" MyThread ");
Let us take an example to understand the need of constructor
overloading. Consider the following implementation of a class Box
with only one constructor taking three arguments.
// An example class to understand need of
// constructor overloading.
class Box
{
double width, height,depth;
// constructor used when all dimensions
// specified
Box(double w, double h, double d)
{
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width = w;
height = h;
depth = d;
}
// compute and return volume
double volume()
{
return width * height * depth;
}
}
As we can see that the Box() constructor requires three parameters.
This means that all declarations of Box objects must pass three
arguments to the Box() constructor.
For example, the following statement is currently invalid:
Box ob = new Box();
Since Box() requires three arguments, it’s an error to call it without
them. Suppose we simply wanted a box object without initial
dimension, or want to initialize a cube by specifying only one value
that would be used for all three dimensions. From the above
implementation of the Box class, these options are not available to us.
These types of problems of different ways of initializing an object can
be solved by constructor overloading.
Example of Constructor Overloading
Below is the improved version of class Box with constructor
overloading.
// Java program to illustrate
// Constructor Overloading
class Box {
double width, height, depth;
// constructor used when all dimensions
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// specified
Box(double w, double h, double d)
{
width = w;
height = h;
depth = d;
}
// constructor used when no dimensions
// specified
Box() { width = height = depth = 0; }
// constructor used when cube is created
Box(double len) { width = height = depth = len; }
// compute and return volume
double volume() { return width * height * depth; }
}
// Driver code
public class Test {
public static void main(String args[])
{
// create boxes using the various
// constructors
Box mybox1 = new Box(10, 20, 15);
Box mybox2 = new Box();
Box mycube = new Box(7);
double vol;
// get volume of first box
vol = mybox1.volume();
System.out.println("Volume of mybox1 is " + vol);
// get volume of second box
vol = mybox2.volume();
System.out.println("Volume of mybox2 is " + vol);
// get volume of cube
vol = mycube.volume();
System.out.println("Volume of mycube is " + vol);
}
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Output
Volume of mybox1 is 3000.0
Volume of mybox2 is 0.0
Volume of mycube is 343.0
Using this() in Constructor Overloading
this() reference can be used during constructor overloading to call the
default constructor implicitly from the parameterized constructor.
Below is the implementation of the above method:
// Java program to illustrate role of this() in
// Constructor Overloading
public class Box {
double width, height, depth;
int boxNo;
// constructor used when all dimensions and
// boxNo specified
Box(double w, double h, double d, int num)
{
width = w;
height = h;
depth = d;
boxNo = num;
}
// constructor used when no dimensions specified
Box()
{
// an empty box
width = height = depth = 0;
}
// constructor used when only boxNo specified
Box(int num)
{
// this() is used for calling the default
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// constructor from parameterized constructor
this();
boxNo = num;
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// create box using only boxNo
Box box1 = new Box(1);
// getting initial width of box1
System.out.println(box1.width);
}
}
Output
0.0
As we can see in the above program we called Box(int num)
constructor during object creation using only box number. By using
this() statement inside it, the default constructor(Box()) is implicitly
called from it which will initialize the dimension of Box with 0.
Note : The constructor calling should be first statement in the
constructor body.
For example, the following fragment is invalid and throws compile
time error.
Box(int num)
{
boxNo = num;
/* Constructor call must be the first
statement in a constructor */
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this(); /*ERROR*/
}
Important points to be taken care of while doing Constructor Overloading
DSA Practice Problems C C++ Java Python JavaScript Data Science Machine Le
Constructor calling must be the first statement of the constructor in
Java.
If we have defined any parameterized constructor, then the compiler
will not create a default constructor. and vice versa if we don’t
define any constructor, the compiler creates the default
constructor(also known as no-arg constructor) by default during
compilation
Recursive constructor calling is invalid in Java.
FAQ in Constructor Overloading
1. Differentiate Constructors Overloading vs Method
Overloading.
Answer:
Strictly speaking, constructor overloading is somewhat similar to
method overloading. If we want to have different ways of
initializing an object using a different number of parameters, then
we must do constructor overloading as we do method
overloading when we want different definitions of a method
based on different parameters.
Related Topics
Constructor
Overloading in Java
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