Frequently Asked Questions Subject Name: OOPS with Java Subject Code: BT0074

Unit 5: Inheritance, Package and Interface

Balasubramani R Assistant Professor Dept. of IT

Q1: What is Inheritance? A1: Inheritance is one of the cornerstones of object-oriented programming because it allows the creation of hierarchical classifications. Using inheritance, you can create a general class that defines traits common to a set of related items. This class can then be inherited by other, more specific classes, each adding those things that are unique to it. Q2: What is a Superclass and Subclass? A2: In the terminology of Java, a class that is inherited is called a Superclass. The class that does the inheriting is called a Subclass. Therefore, a subclass is a special version of a superclass. It inherits all of the instance variables and methods defined by the superclass and add its own, unique elements. Q3: What do you mean by Access Specifiers? A3: An access specifier determines which features of a class (the class itself, the data members, and the methods) may be used by other classes. Java supports three access specifiers. public public class members are accessible from anywhere within the program. private only objects of the same class can access a private variable or method. protected the variables, methods, and inner classes that are declared protected are accessible to the subclasses of the class in which they are declared. Q4: What is a Package in Java? A4: Java provides a mechanism for partitioning the class name space into more manageable chunks. This mechanism is the package. The package is both a naming and a visibility control mechanism. You can define classes inside a package that are not accessible by code outside that package. You can also define class members that are only exposed to other members of the same package. This allows your classes to have intimate knowledge of each other, but not expose that knowledge to the rest of the world. Q5: What is an Interface in Java? A5: Using Interface, you can specify what a class must do, but not how it does it. Using the keyword interface, you can fully abstract a class interface from its implementation. Interfaces are syntactically similar to classes, but they lack instance variables, and their methods are declared without any body.