Inheritance


Topic | v1 | created by jjones |
Description

In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (sub classes) from existing ones such as super class or base class and then forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages, an object created through inheritance, a "child object", acquires all the properties and behaviors of the "parent object" , with the exception of: constructors, destructor, overloaded operators and friend functions of the base class. Inheritance allows programmers to create classes that are built upon existing classes, to specify a new implementation while maintaining the same behaviors (realizing an interface), to reuse code and to independently extend original software via public classes and interfaces.


Relations

subtopic of Object-oriented programming (OOP)

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which...


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Resources

treated in Inheritance was invented as a performance hack

Inheritance was invented by the Simula language as a way to support intrusive lists, save memory, and...