Take Care
Although it seems to be very easy to change a method name, code can be broken if refactoring tools (built into many modern IDE's) are not used to also change all code that refers to the existing method.
If a codebase has provided an external API that including the existing method name then the existing function should not be removed, but 'deprecated' over time and finally removed at a future date. In this case the "Copy Method" refactoring can be considered as an alternative.
- Java 5.0 provides the annotation @Override to help protect against mistakes such as this.
Read more about this topic: Rename Method
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