Java 1.5 come up with a feature of changing the return type of an overridden method in a subclass this is known as covariant return.

Here I had given an example, how we can override the method of super class with a covariant return in sub class.

/************************************************/
package org.sample;

public class SuperClass {

public SuperClass sampleMethod (int count){
System.out.println("I am in Super class");
return new SuperClass();
}
}
/************************************************/
package org.sample;

public class SubClass extends SuperClass {
public SuperClass sampleMethod (int count) {
System.out.println("I am in Sub class");
return new SuperClass();
}
/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
SuperClass sc = new SubClass();
sc.sampleMethod (5);
}
}

/************************************************/
When we run "SubClass" class, we will get output as
I am in Sub class

This shows that we can change the return type of the overriding method only if the new return type is a subtype of the declared return type. And another thing we have to keep in mind is, this Covariant return type is possible only in java 1.5 and in advance version.