Why can't this() and super() both be used together in a constructor?

Question

Why can't this() and super() both be used together in a constructor?

What is the reason for incorporating such a thing?

Solution 1

this(...) will call another constructor in the same class whereas super() will call a super constructor. If there is no super() in a constructor the compiler will add one implicitly.

Thus if both were allowed you could end up calling the super constructor twice.

Example (don't look for a sense in the parameters):

class A {
  public A() {
    this( false );
  }

  public A(boolean someFlag) {
  }
}

class B extends A {
  public B() {
    super();
  }

  public B( boolean someFlag ) {
    super( someFlag );
  }

  public B ( int someNumber ) {
    this(); //
  }
} 

Now, if you call new B(5) the following constructors are invoked:

     this( false);
A() ---------------> A(false)
^
|
| super(); 
|
|     this();
B() <--------------- B(5)  <--- you start here

Update:

If you were able to use this() and super() you could end up with something like this:

(Attention: this is meant to show what could go wrong, if you were allowed to do that - which you fortunately aren't)

     this( false);
A() ---------------> A(false)
^                    ^
|                    |
| super();           | super( true ); <--- Problem: should the parameter be true or false? 
|                    |
|     this();        |
B() <--------------- B(5)  <--- you start here

As you can see, you'd run into a problem where the A(boolean) constructor could be invoked with different parameters and you'd now have to somehow decide which should be used. Additionally the other constructors (A() and B()) could contain code that now might not get called correctly (i.e. out of order etc.) since the call to super( true ) would circumvent them while this() wouldn't.

Solution 2

There is a difference between super() and this().

super()- calls the base class constructor whereas
this()- calls current class constructor.

Both this() and super() are constructor calls.
Constructor call must always be the first statement. So you either have super() or this() as first statement.

Solution 3

Both this() and super() are constructor calls, and constructor call must be the first (and only first) call in a constructor. Otherwise, the Object constructor will be called more than once when instantiating a single object.

Solution 4

• we use this() keyword in constructor chaining to access the constructor of the same class
• we use super() keyword when we want to access the constructor of immediate parent class in inheritance.

And there is a condition in both that they have to be declared in the first line of the constructor you are using. And that's the reason why we can't use both in a single constructor because you can write only one thing in your first line.

Solution 5

Because it doesn't make sense. A constructor has to either call this() or super() (implicitly or explicitly). this() calls another constructor which has to call either this() or super() etc as before. A constructor that called both this() and super() would therefore ultimately call super() twice.

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Comments

[Balaswamy Vaddeman]

basically at a time only one statement is used,what do u mean by "we can not have two statements as first statement",it has got no meaning