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4 - Inheritance
4 - Inheritance
Inheritance
7-Feb-24
Inheritance
Inheritance can be defined as the process where one class
acquires the properties (methods and fields) of another.
The class which inherits the properties of other is known
as subclass (derived class, child class) and the class whose
properties are inherited is known as superclass (base
class, parent class).
Therefore, a subclass is a specialized version of a
superclass.
It inherits all of the instance variables and methods
defined by the superclass and adds its own, unique
elements.
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Important terminologies
Super Class: The class whose features are inherited.
Sub Class: The class that inherits the other class.
The subclass can add its own fields and methods in addition to the
superclass fields and methods.
Reusability: Inheritance supports the concept of
“reusability”,
i.e. when we want to create a new class and there is already a
class that includes some of the code that we want, we can derive
our new class from the existing class. By doing this, we are reusing
the fields and methods of the existing class.
To inherit from a class, use the extends keyword.
Syntax
extends is the keyword used to inherit the properties of a
class.
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Syntax
Inheritance Demo
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Inheritance Demo
Try it!!
Although a subclass includes all of the members of its
superclass, it cannot access those members of the
superclass that have been declared as private.
The final Keyword
If you don't want other classes to inherit from a class, use the
final keyword.
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Types of Inheritance
Single Inheritance
When a class inherits another class, it is known as a single inheritance.
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Hierarchical Inheritance
When two or more classes inherits a single class, it is hierarchical inheritance
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Multiple Inheritance
To reduce the complexity and simplify the language,
multiple inheritance is not supported in java.
Consider a scenario where A, B, and C are three classes.
The C class inherits A and B classes.
Method Overriding
In a class hierarchy, when a method in a subclass has the
same name and type signature as a method in its
superclass,
then the method in the subclass is said to override the
method in the superclass.
When an overridden method is called from within a
subclass, it will always refer to the version of that method
defined by the subclass.
The version of the method defined by the superclass will
be hidden.
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Method Overriding
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Final Keyword
The keyword final has three uses.
First, it can be used to create the equivalent of a named
constant.
The other two uses of final apply to inheritance.
Using final to Prevent Overriding
Using final to Prevent Inheritance
Final Keyword
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The End
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