Thread: Static inherited variable?

Hello everyone, this is my first time here, and I would like to ask a question.

I have a superclass called Entity, which has a function, that will load images into a Image array, if the array doesn't contain anything, this is fine for most of my cases, when the images aren't repeated, however I have a subclass of Entity named Tree, every single image of the tree is the same, so I don't want each object to load its own image of a tree, I would like the array to be static for the subclasses of Entity, and to not be static for Entity itself.

I understand there is simple methods around this, such as making a function in each subclass, however, I would like an easier method if that's possible..

Here is the code, to help you get the idea of what i'm looking for.

	public BufferedImage getImage(String s)
	{
		BufferedImage sprites = null;
		try {
			System.out.println("Getting image: "+s+".png");
			sprites = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResource(s+".png"));
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println(e.getLocalizedMessage());
		}
		return sprites;
	}
 
	public void loadImages(int xAmount, int yAmount) {
		BufferedImage sprites = getImage(imagePath+imageName);
		if (sprites != null) {
			for (int x = 0; x < xAmount*yAmount; x++) {
				images[x] = sprites.getSubimage((x%xAmount)*imageWidth, (x/xAmount)*imageHeight, imageWidth, imageHeight);
			}
		} else System.out.println("Null Image");
	}
 
	public Image getImage() {
		if (this.images[0] == null) {
			this.loadImages(imagex, imagey);
		}
}

For each 'unique' entity, it will output "Getting image: whatevertheimageis", and that's fine, but for repeated images, such as Tree's, It will just spam the console with "Getting image: /images/entities/tree.png".

I hope you understand my question, I would really appreciate some light on this topic! Thankyou very much.

Welcome to the forum! Thanks for taking the time to learn how to post code correctly. If you haven't already, please read this topic to learn other useful info for new members.

In Java, 'functions' are called methods. Please try to communicate in sentences that clearly communicate the requirements you are trying to code.

I would like the array to be static for the subclasses of Entity, and to not be static for Entity itself.

I think you can accomplish this by creating a static array in a subclass of Entity and then subclass the new class. With some additional code, the parent class Entity could have access to the same array, but I'm not sure it's needed or worth the trouble of keeping it up to date (synchronized).

In the end, I think your imagined design can be simplified to overcome the problems you anticipate, but it is difficult to understand your question, since the requirements are not clearly stated.