Introduction to Inheritance

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 Learn about the concept of inheritance
 Learn inheritance terminology
 How to extend classes
 How to use the protected access
specifier
 How to override superclass methods

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 How to access superclass methods from a
subclass
 How a subclass object “is an” instance of
the superclass
 About the Object class
 How to work with superclasses that have
constructors
 How to work with superclass constructors
that require arguments

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 How to create and use abstract classes
 How to create and use interfaces
 Learn the benefits of inheritance

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 Inheritance is the principle that states you can
apply your knowledge of a general category to
more specific objects
 When you create a class by making it inherit
from another class, you are provided with data
fields and methods automatically
 There are many advantages to using inheritance

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 An Employee class

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 The ability to use inheritance makes programs easier to
write, less error-prone, and easier to understand

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 A class that is used as a basis for inheritance is
called a base class
 When you create a class that inherits from a base
class, it is a derived class or extended class
 You can use the terms superclass and subclass
as synonyms for base class and derived class
 You usually can distinguish base classes from
their subclasses by size

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 A derived class can be further extended
 Inheritance is transitive; that means a child
inherits all the members of all its ancestors
 When you create your own transitive inheritance
chains, you want to place fields and methods at
their most general level

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 When you create a class that is an extension or
child of another class, you use a single colon
between the derived class name and its base
class name
 Inheritance works in one direction

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 Occasionally, you want to allow a subclass to
access parent class data, while still abiding by
the principle of information hiding
 The keyword protected provides you with an
intermediate level of security
 A protected data field or method can be used
within its own class or in any classes extended
from that class, but it cannot be used by
“outside” classes

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 Declaring empSal as protected and accessing it
within CommissionEmployee

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 When you create a subclass by extending an
existing class, the new subclass contains data
and methods that were defined in the original
superclass
 Sometimes the superclass data fields and
methods are not appropriate for the subclass
objects
 Using the same method name to indicate
different implementations is called
polymorphism

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 In the above child class, the SetCredits() method
is declared as new because it has the same
name and argument list as a method in its parent
class—it overrides its counterpart

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 DemoStudents program and Output

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 A subclass can contain a method with the same
name and arguments as a method in its parent
class
 When you want to use the parent class method
within a subclass use the base keyword to
access the parent class method
 A method that calls itself is a recursive method

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 Every subclass object “is a” specific instance of
both the subclass and the superclass
 You can assign a subclass object to an object of
any of its superclass types. When you do so, C#
makes an implicit conversion from subclass to
superclass
 C# also makes implicit conversions when casting
one data type to another

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 Every class you create in C# derives from a
single class named System.Object
 The object (or Object) class type in the System
namespace is the ultimate base class for all other
types
 Every class descends from Object

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 The Four public Instance Methods of the Object class

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 The GetType() method returns an object’s type,
or class
 Object class methods are usually overridden
 The ToString() method can be useful for
debugging
 The Object class’s Equals() method returns true if
two Objects have the same memory address

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 When you instantiate an object that is a member
of a subclass, you actually call two constructors
 When you create any subclass object, the base
class constructor must execute first

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 When you use a class as a superclass, and the
class has a constructor that requires arguments,
then you must make sure that any subclasses
provide the superclass constructor with the
proper arguments
 The format of the statement that calls a
superclass constructor is base(list of
arguments)
 C# does not allow you to call the superclass
constructor by name, it must be called using the
base keyword

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 An abstract class is one from which you cannot
create any concrete objects, but from which you
can inherit
 An abstract method has no method
statements; any class derived from a class
containing an abstract method must override the
abstract method by providing a body for it
 When you create an abstract method, you
provide the keyword abstract and the intended
method type, name, and argument
 When you create a subclass that inherits an
abstract method from a parent, you must use the
override keyword

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 Animal class

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 Dog and Cat classes

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 DemoAnimals program and Output

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 The ability to inherit from more than one class is
called multiple inheritance
 Multiple inheritance creates many complicated
problems, and as a result is prohibited in C#
 C# does provide an alternative to multiple
inheritance in the form of interfaces

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 The benefits of inheritance are as follows:
 Subclass creators save development time because much
of the code that is needed for the class has already been
written
 Subclass creators save testing time
 Programmers who create or use new subclasses already
understand how the superclass works, so the time it
takes to learn the new class feature is reduced
 The superclass maintains its integrity

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 Inheritance is the principle that you can apply
your knowledge of a general category to more
specific objects
 A class that is used as a basis for inheritance is
called a base class
 When you create a class that is an extension or
child of another class, you use a single colon
between derived class name and its base class
name
 If you could use private data outside of its class,
the principle of information hiding would be
destroyed
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 You can declare a child class method with the
same name and argument list as a method within
its parent class
 When a subclass overrides a parent class method
and you want to use the parent class version, you
can use the keyword base to access the parent
class method
 Every subclass object “is a” specific instance of
both the subclass and the superclass
 Every class you create in C# derives from a
single class named System.Object

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 When you instantiate an object that is a member
of a subclass, you actually call two constructors
 When you use a class as a superclass, and the
class has a constructor that requires arguments,
then within the header of the subclass
constructor you must provide values for any
arguments required by the base class constructor
 An abstract class is one from which you cannot
create any concrete objects
 C# provides an alternative to multiple
inheritance known as the interface

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