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Class Inheritance and Type Casting: Class Inheritance: An Object Can Belong To Multiple Types. Object of

Class inheritance allows new classes to inherit attributes and behaviors from existing base classes. Objects of derived classes can be treated as objects of their base classes through implicit type casting. Type casting involves evaluating an object and casting it to the type on the left side. For example, an object of IITKStudent can be implicitly type cast to Indian since IITKStudent extends Indian. Explicit type casting is needed to access attributes specific to subclasses.

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25 views

Class Inheritance and Type Casting: Class Inheritance: An Object Can Belong To Multiple Types. Object of

Class inheritance allows new classes to inherit attributes and behaviors from existing base classes. Objects of derived classes can be treated as objects of their base classes through implicit type casting. Type casting involves evaluating an object and casting it to the type on the left side. For example, an object of IITKStudent can be implicitly type cast to Indian since IITKStudent extends Indian. Explicit type casting is needed to access attributes specific to subclasses.

Uploaded by

arjun
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Class Inheritance and Type Casting

Date: April 8, 2008 Instructor : Dr. Rajat Moona


In previous class we learnt that, in object-oriented programming,
Inheritance is a way to form new classes using classes that have already
been defined. The new classes, known as derived classes inherit
attributes and behavior of the pre-existing classes, which are referred to
as base classes.

Class Inheritance: An object can belong to multiple types. Object of


derived class is also an object of base class.
Class classname1 extends classname2 {
… // Attributes and behavior specific to classname1
}
Here an object of classname1 is also an object of classname2.

Class Diagram Example

Subclass Point

Class Line

Super Class Triangle

Geometric Figure
Section Section
ESC101Student

IITKStudent Rollno

Indian Age , Name , Place of birth , DOB

Example code is as follows:


Class Indian{
String name;
int age;
Indian(){
…
}
}
Class IITKStudent extends Indian{
int Rollno;
IITKStudent(){
…
}
}
Class ESC101Student extends IITKStudent{
String Section;
ESC101Student(){
…
}
}

Now lets take an object of class Indian.


Indian O;
O = new Indian();
O = new IITKStudent();
O = new ESC101Student();

All above statements are correct.


Type casting:
Subclass object is type cast to superclass object.

Subclass
typecast

Superclass

o = new Indian();
o.Name; //Correct
o.Section //Incorrect
o.Rollno; //Incorrect
ESC101Student e;
e = o; // if o is not object of ESC101Student then this results in error
o = e; //Correct for any object type of o because of type cast

L = R => L =(type of L)R.


This means evaluate R and do an implicit type cast of L and then store
evaluated R to L. Thus order of evaluation is from right to left.
For Example ,
Indian o = new IITKStudent();

Here 3 operations are performed.

Memory allocation for new object


type cast to class ‘Indian’
call to constructor
Implicit type cast is not done if there is loss of information.
e.g.
int x = 3.2/2.0; //incorrect
int x = (int)(3.2/2.0); //correct
An Object of subclass can be implicitly converted to that of superclass.
Indian o = new IITKStudent(); // implicit type cast to ‘Indian’
o.Rollno //Incorrect
((IITKStudent)o).Rollno; //Correct

Now Consider following example.


O = new ESC101Student();
((IITKStudent)o).Rollno; //Correct
((IITKStudent)o).Scetion; //Incorrect
((ESC101Student)o).Section; //Correct

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