Assign weaker access to method overriding from superclass

Question

I have a Class called Module which has a Method onEnable(); Now i have a class called Config and want to make the onEnable(); method private because there is a predefined acting and a class extending Config should'nt be allowed to change the behaviour.

Is there any way to do this?

Example

class Module{

     public void onEnable(){

     }
}

A class extending Module which is allowed to use onEnable:

class HelloWorldModule{

     @Override
     public void onEnable(){

          System.out.println("Hello, World!");

     }


}

Now the config Class, where i want that onEnable is private so that Classes which extend Config cannot! Override onEnable:

class Config{

    @Override
    private void onEnable(){
    }


}

So NOW, a class named ProgrammConfig which extends Config cannot override onEnable.

However, this is not working because you cannot override a public method to a private method.

Answer 1

By declaring a method as public, you are saying that it should be possible to call said method on every instance of this class, including subclasses. Declaring a method as private in a subclass doesn't make sense, and is thus not allowed.

Now, if you're concerned about subclasses overriding the method, you can declare the method as final to prevent this:

class Config extends Module{

    @Override
    public final void onEnable(){}
        //Whatever
    }