Programming in C#

Inheritance and Polymorphism

C# Classes

Classes are used to accomplish:

Modularity: Scope for global (static) methods Blueprints for generating objects or instances:

Per instance data and method signatures

Classes support

Data encapsulation - private data and implementation. Inheritance - code reuse

Inheritance

Inheritance allows a software developer to derive a new class from an existing one. The existing class is called the parent, super, or base class. The derived class is called a child or subclass. The child inherits characteristics of the parent.

Methods and data defined for the parent class.

The child has special rights to the parents methods and data.

Public access like any one else Protected access available only to child classes (and their descendants).

The child has its own unique behaviors and data.

Inheritance

Inheritance relationships are often shown graphically in a class diagram, with the arrow pointing to the parent class. Inheritance should create an is-a relationship, meaning the child is a more specific version of the parent.

Animal

Bird

Examples: Base Classes and Derived Classes

Student

GraduateStudent UndergraduateStudent Circle Triangle Rectangle CarLoan HomeImprovementLoan MortgageLoan FacultyMember StaffMember CheckingAccount SavingsAccount

Shape

Loan

Employee Account

Declaring a Derived Class

Define a new class DerivedClass which extends BaseClass

Controlling Inheritance

A child class inherits the methods and data defined for the parent class; however, whether a data or method member of a parent class is accessible in the child class depends on the visibility modifier of a member. Variables and methods declared with private visibility are not accessible in the child class

However, a private data member defined in the parent class is still part of the state of a derived class.

Variables and methods declared with public visibility are accessible; but public variables violate our goal of encapsulation There is a third visibility modifier that helps in inheritance situations: protected.

The protected Modifier

Variables and methods declared with protected visibility in a parent class are only accessible by a child class or any class derived from that class

Book # pages : int + GetNumberOfPages() : void

Dictionary - definition : int + PrintDefinitionMessage() : void

+ public - private # protected

Single Inheritance
Some languages, e.g., C++, allow Multiple inheritance, which allows a class to be derived from two or more classes, inheriting the members of all parents. C# and Java support single inheritance, meaning that a derived class can have only one parent class.

Overriding Methods

A child class can override the definition of an inherited method in favor of its own That is, a child can redefine a method that it inherits from its parent The new method must have the same signature as the parent's method, but can have a different implementation. The type of the object executing the method determines which version of the method is invoked.

Class Hierarchies

A child class of one parent can be the parent of another child, forming a class Animal hierarchy
Reptile Bird Mammal

Snake

Lizard

Parrot

Horse

Bat

Class Hierarchies
CommunityMember

Employee

Student

Alumnus

Faculty

Staff

Under

Graduate

Professor

Instructor

Class Hierarchies
Shape

TwoDimensionalShape

ThreeDimensionalShape

Circle

Square

Triangle

Sphere

Cube

Cylinder

Class Hierarchies

An inherited member is continually passed down the line

Inheritance is transitive.

Good class design puts all common features as high in the hierarchy as is reasonable. Avoids redundant code.

References and Inheritance

An object reference can refer to an object of its class, or to an object of any class derived from it by inheritance. For example, if the Holiday class is used to derive a child class called Christmas, then a Holiday reference can be used to point to a Christmas object. Holiday day;
day = new Holiday(); day = new Christmas();

Dynamic Binding
A polymorphic reference is one which can refer to different types of objects at different times. It morphs! The type of the actual instance, not the declared type, determines which method is invoked. Polymorphic references are therefore resolved at run-time, not during compilation.

This is called dynamic binding.

Dynamic Binding

Suppose the Holiday class has a method called Celebrate, and the Christmas class redefines it (overrides it). Now consider the following invocation: day.Celebrate(); If day refers to a Holiday object, it invokes the Holiday version of Celebrate; if it refers to a Christmas object, it invokes the Christmas version

Overriding Methods

C# requires that all class definitions communicate clearly their intentions. The keywords virtual, override and new provide this communication. If a base class method is going to be overridden it should be declared virtual. A derived class would then indicate that it indeed does override the method with the override keyword.

Overriding Methods
If a derived class wishes to hide a method in the parent class, it will use the new keyword. This should be avoided.

Overloading vs. Overriding

Overloading deals with multiple methods in the same class with the same name but different signatures Overloading lets you define a similar operation in different ways for different data Example:
int foo(string[] bar); int foo(int bar1, float a);

Overriding deals with two methods, one in a parent class and one in a child class, that have the same signature Overriding lets you define a similar operation in different ways for different object types Example:
class Base { public virtual int foo() {} } class Derived { public override int foo() {}}

Polymorphism via Inheritance

Volunteer

Employee
# socialSecurityNumber : String # payRate : double

+ Pay() : double

+ ToString() : string + Pay() : double

Executive
- bonus : double + AwardBonus(execBonus : double) : void + Pay() : double

Hourly
- hoursWorked : int + AddHours(moreHours : int) : void + ToString() : string + Pay() : double

Widening and Narrowing

Assigning an object to an ancestor reference is considered to be a widening conversion, and can be performed by simple assignment
Holiday day = new Christmas();

Assigning an ancestor object to a reference can also be done, but it is considered to be a narrowing conversion and must be done with a cast:
Christmas christ = new Christmas(); Holiday day = christ; Christmas christ2 = (Christmas)day;

Widening and Narrowing

Widening conversions are most common.

Used in polymorphism.

Note: Do not be confused with the term widening or narrowing and memory. Many books use short to long as a widening conversion. A long just happens to take-up more memory in this case. More accurately, think in terms of sets:

The set of animals is greater than the set of parrots. The set of whole numbers between 0-65535 (ushort) is greater (wider) than those from 0-255 (byte).

Type Unification

Everything in C# inherits from object

Similar to Java except includes value types. Value types are still light-weight and handled specially by the CLI/CLR. This provides a single base type for all instances of all types.

Called Type Unification

The System.Object Class

All classes in C# are derived from the Object class

if a class is not explicitly defined to be the child of an existing class, it is a direct descendant of the Object class

The Object class is therefore the ultimate root of all class hierarchies. The Object class defines methods that will be shared by all objects in C#, e.g.,

ToString: converts an object to a string representation Equals: checks if two objects are the same GetType: returns the type of a type of object

A class can override a method defined in Object to have a different behavior, e.g.,

String class overrides the Equals method to compare the content of two strings