Computer Science 1001

Lecture 24

Lecture Outline

• Inheritance and Polymorphism

– CS1001 Lecture 24 –
 Inheritance

• Inheritance enables us to define a general class

(superclass) and later extend it to more specialized
classes (subclasses).

• Note that a subclass is not a subset of its superclass.

In fact, a subclass usually contains more information
and methods than its superclass.

• Inheritance models the “is-a” relationship. For

example, a rectangle “is-a” geometric object.

• Not all “is-a” relationships should be modelled using

inheritance.

• For example, although a square “is-a” rectangle, it

is best to represent a square as its own geometric
object since separate width and height properties do
not make sense for a square (a single side attribute
would be best).

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 1
 Overriding methods

• Sometimes a subclass needs to modify the

implementation of a method defined in the
superclass.

• This is referred to as method overriding.

• To override a method, the method must be defined

in the subclass using the same header as in its
superclass.

• For example, the __str__() method in

GeometricObject returns a string describing the
color and fill; we may want to include information
more specific to a given shape (ex. radius of a
Circle).

• In class Circle we could have:

def __str__(self):
return super().__str__() + "radius: " + str(self.__radius)

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 2
 Overriding methods

• Both __str__ methods, the one in the

GeometricObject class and the one in the Circle
class, can be used in the Circle class.

• To invoke the __str__ method in the

GeometricObject class from within Circle, we
use super().__str__().

• We could also override __str__() for a Rectangle:

def __str__(self):
return super().__str__() + "width: " + str(self.__width) \
+ "height: " + str(self.__height)

• Note that a private method cannot be overridden.

• If a method defined in a subclass has the same

name as a private method in its superclass, the two
methods are unrelated.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 3
 The object class

• Every class in Python is descended from the object

class.

• The object class is defined in the Python library.

• If no inheritance is specified when a class is defined,

the superclass of the class is the object class.

• For example, class ClassName: is equivalent to

class ClassName(object).

• All methods in the object class can be used within

classes that we create.

• All methods in the object class are special

methods.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 4
 The object class

• The following methods are contained in the object

class:

__new__() # invoked during object creation - calls __init__()

__init__() # invoked to initialize object
__str__() # returns string with class name and memory location
__eq__(other) # returns True if 2 objects are the same

• Typically we would override __init__() but not

__new__().

• It is often good to override __str__() to provide a

more informative description of the object.

• We have seen how to override __eq__() to compare

contents since by default x.__eq__(y) is False for
objects with different ids, even though the contents
of x and y may be equal.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 5
 Example: questions

• Suppose that we want to create a series of questions

and answers.

• A question can be presented in many different forms.

• For example, we could have multiple choice

questions, or fill in the blank questions.

• The general concept of a question is the same in all

cases since all questions require text for the question
itself and a correct answer.

• Here, we will create a general Question class

which can form the superclass of several subclasses
representing different types of questions.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 6
 Example: questions

class Question:
def __init__(self):
self.__text = ""
self.__answer = ""

def setText(self,questionText):
self.__text = questionText

def setAnswer(self,correctAnswer):
self.__answer = correctAnswer

def checkAnswer(self,response):
return response == self.__answer

def display(self):
print(self.__text)

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 7
 Example: questions

• If we want a simple question where the user has to

type in an answer, then we can create an instance
of Question, as in:

def main():
q = Question()
q.setText("Who is the inventor of Python?")
q.setAnswer("Guido van Rossum")
q.display()
tryAgain = "Y"
while tryAgain=="Y":
response = input("Enter your answer: ")
if q.checkAnswer(response):
print("You are correct!")
tryAgain=""
else:
tryAgain = input("Enter ’Y’ to try again: ")

if __name__=="__main__":
main()

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 8
 Example: questions

• If we want a multiple-choice type question

we can create a subclass of Question named
MultipleChoice.

• Recall that a subclass will inherit the accessible

attributes and methods of its superclass.

• To implement the subclass we include only attributes

that are not a part of the superclass, and methods
that are either new (specific) to the subclass or
whose implementation needs to be changed from
the superclass inherited method (overridden).

• For a MultipleChoice class we must have a place

to store the various choices, a method to add the
choices, and a method to display the choices.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 9
 Example: questions

class MultipleChoice(Question):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.__choices = []

def addChoice(self,option,correct):
self.__choices.append(option)
if correct:
self.setAnswer(str(self.__choices.index(option)+1))

def display(self):
super().display() # display question
for i in range(len(self.__choices)): # display choices
print(i+1,". ",self.__choices[i],sep="")

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 10
 Example: questions

• We can now generate a series of questions with

different types:

def main():
q = Question()
q.setText("Who is the inventor of Python?")
q.setAnswer("Guido van Rossum")

q1=MultipleChoice()
q1.setText("When was Python first released?")
q1.addChoice("1988",False)
q1.addChoice("1991",True)
q1.addChoice("1994",False)
q1.addChoice("1997",False)
q1.addChoice("2000",False)

q2=MultipleChoice()
q2.setText("Python is a successor of which language?")
q2.addChoice("C",False)
q2.addChoice("Fortran",False)
q2.addChoice("Java",False)
q2.addChoice("ABC",True)
q2.addChoice("Perl",False)

showQuestion(q)
showQuestion(q1)
showQuestion(q2)

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 11
 def showQuestion(q):
q.display() # display question
response = input("Enter your answer: ")
if q.checkAnswer(response):
print("You are correct!")
else:
print("This is incorrect...")
print()

• Sample input/output:
Who is the inventor of Python?
Enter your answer: Bill Gates
This is incorrect...

When was Python first released?

1. 1988
2. 1991
3. 1994
4. 1997
5. 2000
Enter your answer: 2
You are correct!

Python is a successor of which language?

1. C
2. Fortran
3. Java
4. ABC
5. Perl
Enter your answer: 4
You are correct!

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 12
• Note that when we called showQuestion we
passed in a Question on the first call but a
MultipleChoice on the second and third calls.

– CS1001 Lecture 24 – 13