Inheritance
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Inheritance in Java is one of the fundamental pillars of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). It provides a mechanism through which a class can inherit properties and behaviors from another class.
Class Hierarchy
In inheritance, classes are organized in a hierarchy, where a more specific class (subclass or child class) inherits characteristics from a more general class (superclass or parent class). For example, if you have a class "Animal" as a superclass, you could have subclasses like "Dog" and "Cat."
Inheritance models the "is-a" relationship. If a class B inherits from a class A, it can be said that B is a type of A. A Dog is a type of Animal.
In Java, inheritance is implemented using the extends keyword. When you define a child class, you use extends to indicate from which class it is inheriting.
public class Dog extends Animal {
// code of the Dog class
}
The subclass inherits both methods and attributes from the superclass. This means it can use and, in some cases, modify the behavior defined in the superclass.
public class Animal {
public void eat() {
System.out.println("The animal eats.");
}
}
public class Dog extends Animal {
// The Dog class inherits the eat method from the Animal class
}
Inherited members (methods and attributes) can be used directly in the subclass. Visibility depends on access modifiers (public, private, protected).
public class Dog extends Animal {
public void bark() {
System.out.println("Woof, woof!");
}
public void performActivity() {
eat(); // Access to the inherited method from the superclass
bark(); // Subclass's own method
}
}
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