OO Concepts:

Inheritance and Polymorphism

Atul Gupta

Inheritance

A relationship between a set of closely related classes

having similarities and differences
Superclass-subclass relationship
A subclass inherits all the members of its parent and
may add attributes and methods of its own
Superclass holds common attributes, operations, and
associations; subclasses add specific attributes,
operations, and associations
is-a or a-kind-of or a-type-of relationship
Depicts a hierarchy of relationship

Example - Inheritance
Figure

Diagram
name

ZeroDimensional

color
penType
move()
rotate()
display()

dimensionality

OneDimensional

TwoDimensional
fillColor

scale()

Point

Line

Arc

fill(); scale()

Spline

Polygon

Circle

x-coord
y-coord

startPoint
endPoint

radius
startAngle

controlPts

numOfSides
vertices

radius
centre

display()

display()

display()

display()

display()

display()
rotate()

Inheritance

A subclass inherits attributes and methods from its

superclass
Inheritance is also referred as GeneralizationSpecialization relationship opposite perspectives
Inheritance is also referred as Classification

Multiple Generalization

Use of Generalization

To structure the description of objects forming

taxonomies dealing with complexity
To enable reuse of code
To support polymorphism

Call an operation at the superclass level

Add new subclasses

Overriding Features

Provide more specificity to inherited information

Boost performance
Never override the signature, or form of a feature
Should be done with great care

Abstract Class

A class whose partial or complete implementation is

deferred to subclasses
A class that can not be instantiated
Normally, superclasses in a hierarchy, that dont make
sense for their instanciation, are declared as abstract
Abstract classes may contain abstract methods
Abstract methods are methods with no body
specification
A class containing at least one abstract method is to be
declared as abstract

Example - Inheritance
Figure

Diagram
name

ZeroDimensional

color
penType
move()
rotate()
display()

OneDimensional

TwoDimensional
fillColor
fill()

Point

Line

Arc

Spline

Polygon

Circle

x-coord
y-coord

startPoint
endPoint

radius
startAngle

controlPts

name
address

name
address

display()

display()

display()

display()

display()

display()
rotate()

Multiple - Inheritance
Vehicle

LandVehicle

Car

WaterVehicle

AmphibiousVehicle

Boat

Class Relationships: An Example

Polymorphism

Inheritance enables polymorphism

Three types

Overloaded Methods and Attributes

Overridden Methods
Dynamic Binding

In a sound hierarchy, a parent behavior can be

substituted with a child behavior [Liskov-88]

Summary

Inheritance is used

To structure the description of objects forming taxonomies

dealing with complexity
To enable reuse of code
To support polymorphism

Call an operation at the superclass level

Add new subclasses

Classes with incompletely specified behavior are

declared as Abstract