The bytecode for method invocation does store the type of the method (which includes the return type), and it is quite valid for a class file to contain multipl

The bytecode for method invocation does store the type of the method (which includes the return type), and it is quite valid for a class file to contain multiple methods that are only distinguishable by their return type. You can't normally do this visibly in Java, but I think it's used for bridge methods and a few other things by the compiler.