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C# Inheritance
In C#, inheritance allows us to create a new class from an
existing class. It is a key feature of Object-Oriented
Programming (OOP).

The class from which a new class is created is known as

the base class (parent or superclass). And, the new class is
called derived class (child or subclass)

The derived class inherits the fields and methods of the

base class. This helps with the code reusability in C#.

How to perform inheritance in C#?

In C#, we use the : symbol to perform inheritance. For
example,
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class Animal {
// fields and methods
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// Dog inherits from Animal
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class DogSearch
: Animal {
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// fields and methods of Animal
// fields and methods of Dog
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}

Here, we are inheriting the derived class Dog from the

base class Animal . The Dog class can now access the
fields and methods of Animal class.

C# Inheritance
 Example:
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// base class
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class Animal {

public string name;

public void display() {

Console.WriteLine("I am an animal");
}

// derived class of Animal

class Dog : Animal {

public void getName() {

Console.WriteLine("My name is " + name);
}
}

class Program {

static void Main(string[] args) {

// object of derived class

Output

I am an animal
My name is Rohu

In the above example, we have derived a subclass Dog

from the superclass Animal . Notice the statements,

labrador.name = "Rohu";

labrador.getName();

Here, we are using labrador (object of Dog) to access the

name and display() of the Animal class. This is possible
because the derived class inherits all fields and methods
 of the
Thank you for printing ourbase class.
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Try hands-on
Also,coding with accessed the name field inside the method
we have
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is-a relationship
In C#, inheritance is an is-a relationship. We use
inheritance only if there is an is-a relationship between
two classes. For example,

Dog is an Animal

Apple is a Fruit

Car is a Vehicle

We can derive Dog from Animal class. Similarly, Apple

from Fruit class and Car from Vehicle class.

protected Members in C#
Inheritance
When we declare a field or method as protected , it can
only be accessed from the same class and its derived
classes.
 Example:
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Inheritance
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using System;
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namespace Inheritance {

// base class
class Animal {
protected void eat() {
Console.WriteLine("I can eat");
}
}

// derived class of Animal

class Dog : Animal {
static void Main(string[] args) {

Dog labrador = new Dog();

// access protected method from base class

labrador.eat();

Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

Output

I can eat

In the above example, we have created a class named

Animal . The class includes a protected method eat() .

We have derived the Dog class from the Animal class.

Notice the statement,

labrador.eat();
 Since
Thank you for printing the
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protected from
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derived classes, we are able to access the eat() method
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Types of inheritance
There are the following types of inheritance:

1. Single Inheritance
In single inheritance, a single derived class inherits from a
single base class.

C# Single Inheritance

2. Multilevel Inheritance
In multilevel inheritance, a derived class inherits from a
base and then the same derived class acts as a base
class for another class.
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C# Multilevel Inheritance

3. Hierarchical Inheritance
In hierarchical inheritance, multiple derived classes
inherit from a single base class.

C# Hierarchical Inheritance

4. Multiple Inheritance
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In multiple inheritance, a single derived class inherits from
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multiple base classes. C# doesn't support multiple
inheritance. However, we can achieve multiple
inheritance through interfaces.

Multiple Inheritance

5. Hybrid Inheritance
Hybrid inheritance is a combination of two or more types
of inheritance. The combination of multilevel and
hierarchical inheritance is an example of Hybrid
inheritance.
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C# Hybrid Inheritance

Method Overriding in C#
Inheritance
If the same method is present in both the base class and
the derived class, the method in the derived class
overrides the method in the base class. This is called
method overriding in C#. For example,
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using System;
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class Animal {
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public virtual void eat() {

Console.WriteLine("I eat food");

}
}

// derived class of Animal

class Dog : Animal {

// overriding method from Animal

public override void eat() {

Console.WriteLine("I eat Dog food");

}
}
class Program {

static void Main(string[] args) {

// object of derived class
Dog labrador = new Dog();

Output

I eat Dog food

In the above example, the eat() method is present in

both the base class and derived class.

When we call eat() using the Dog object labrador ,

labrador.eat();

the method inside Dog is called. This is because the

method inside Dog overrides the same method inside
Animal .
 Notice,
Thank you for printing we have
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Please check
methods of the base class and derived class respectively.
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derived class
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override - indicates the method is overriding the
method from the base class

base Keyword in C# Inheritance

In the previous example, we saw that the method in the
derived class overrides the method in the base class.

However, what if we want to call the method of the base

class as well?

In that case, we use the base keyword to call the method

of the base class from the derived class.
 Example:
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// base class
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class Animal {
public virtual void eat() {

Console.WriteLine("Animals eat food.");

}
}

// derived class of Animal

class Dog : Animal {

// overriding method from Animal

public override void eat() {

// call method from Animal class

base.eat();

Console.WriteLine("Dogs eat Dog food.");

}
}
class Program {

static void Main(string[] args) {

Output

Animals eat food.

Dogs eat Dog food.

In the above example, the eat() method is present in

both the base class Animal and the derived class Dog .
Notice the statement,

base.eat();

Here, we have used the base keyword to access the

method of Animal class from the Dog class.
 Importance of Inheritance in C#
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squares, rectangles, and so on. And, we have to find the
perimeter of these polygons based on the input.

1. Since the formula to calculate perimeter is common for

all regular polygons, we can create a RegularPolygon

class and a method calculatePerimeter() to calculate

perimeter.

class RegularPolygon {

calculatePerimeter() {
// code to compute perimeter
}
}

2. And inherit Square and Rectangle classes from the

RegularPolygon class. Each of these classes will have
properties to store the length and number of sides
because they are different for all polygons.

class Square : RegularPolygon {

int length = 0;
int sides = 0;
}

We pass the value of the length and sides to

calculateperimeter() to compute the perimeter.

This is how inheritance makes our code reusable and

more intuitive.
 Example:
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class RegularPolygon {

public void calculatePerimeter(int length, int si

int result = length * sides;

Console.WriteLine("Perimeter: " + result);
}
}

class Square : RegularPolygon {

public int length = 200;

public int sides = 4;
public void calculateArea() {

int area = length * length;

Console.WriteLine("Area of Square: " + area);
}
}

class Rectangle : RegularPolygon {

public int length = 100;

Output

Area of Square: 40000

Perimeter: 800
Area of Rectangle: 20000
Perimeter: 400

In the above example, we have created a RegularPolygon

class that has a method to calculate the perimeter of the

regular polygon.

Here, the Square and Rectangle inherit from

RegularPolygon .
 The formula
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our content the perimeter
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Please for all,
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so we have reused the calculatePerimeter() method of
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different shapes, we have created a separate method
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inside the derived class to calculate the area.

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