In Java programming, when you use two variables with the same name within an overlapping scope, shadowing happens. By shadowing, if you use the variable name within the overlapping scope, the one with the smaller scope, will be visible and the one with the larger scope will be invisible unless you clearly tell java that you are accessing the variable with the larger scope. Have a look at the example below:

Variable x is both a local variable for sampleMethod and an instance variable for ShadowingExample class. The local variable has a smaller scope, while the instance variable has a larger scope. This means the local variable x is only visible inside the method sampleMethod while instance variable x is visible throughout class SahdowingExample. The overlapping scope is within sampleMethod, where both the variables are visible. In this case, if you access x$,$ java applies shadowing protocol.

Now consider the following code: