PYTHON

LECTURE 46
 Today’s Agenda

• Advance Concepts Of Object Oriented

Programming-IV

• Multiple Inheritance
• The MRO Algorithm
• Hybrid Inheritance
• The Diamond Problem
 Multiple Inheritance

 Like C++, in Python also a class  can be derived from

more than one base class.

 This is called multiple inheritance.

 In multiple inheritance, the features of all the base

classes are inherited into the derived class. 
Multiple Inheritance
 Syntax

class A:
# properties of class A

class B:
#properties of class B

class C(A,B):
# class C inheriting property of class A
# class C inheriting property of class B
# more properties of class C
 Example

class Person: class ScienceStudent(Person,Student):

def __init__(self,name,age):
def __init__(self,name,age,roll,per,stream):
self.name=name Person.__init__(self,name,age)
self.age=age Student.__init__(self,roll,per)
def getname(self): self.stream=stream
def getstream(self):
return self.name
return self.stream
def getage(self):
return self.age ms=ScienceStudent("Suresh",19,203,89.4,"maths")
class Student: print("Name:",ms.getname())
print("Age:",ms.getage())
def __init__(self,roll,per):
print("Roll:",ms.getroll())
self.roll=roll print("Per:",ms.getper())
self.per=per print("Stream:",ms.getstream())
def getroll(self):
return self.roll Output:
def getper(self):
return self.per
 Guess The Output ?

class A:
Output:
def m(self):
print("m of A called")

Why did m( ) of A
class B: got called ?
def m(self):
print("m of B called") This is because of a
special rule in
Python called MRO
class C(A,B):
pass

obj=C()
obj.m()
 What Is MRO In Python ?

 In languages that use multiple inheritance, the order in

which base classes are searched when looking for a
method is often called the Method Resolution Order,
or MRO.

 MRO RULE :
 In the multiple inheritance scenario, any specified attribute is searched
first in the current class. If not found, the search continues into
parent classes, left-right fashion and then in depth-first
without searching same class twice.
 Can We See This MRO ?

 Yes, Python allows us to see this MRO by calling a method

called mro( ) which is present in every class by default.
 Example

class A:
def m(self):
print("m of A called")

class B:
def m(self):
print("m of B called")

class C(A,B):
pass
print(C.mro())
Output
 Another Way To See MRO ?

 There is a tuple also called __mro__ made available in

every class by Python using which we can get the same
output as before
 Example

class A:
def m(self):
print("m of A called")

class B:
def m(self):
print("m of B called")

class C(A,B):
pass
print(C.__mro__)
Output
 The Hybrid Inheritance

 This form combines more than one form of inheritance.

Basically, it is a blend of more than one type of inheritance.
 Example

class A: obj=D()
def m1(self): obj.m1()
print("m1 of A called") obj.m2()
class B(A): obj.m3()
def m2(self):
print("m2 of B called")
class C(A):
def m3(self):
print("m3 of C called")
class D(B,C):
pass
Output:
 The Diamond Problem

 The “diamond problem” is the generally used term for

an ambiguity that arises in hybrid inheritance .

 Suppose two classes B and C inherit from a superclass A,

and another class D inherits from both B and C.

 If there is a method "m" in A that B and C have

overridden, then the question is which version of the
method does D inherit?
 Guess The Output

class A:
obj=D()
def m(self):
obj.m()
print("m of A called")

class B(A):
Why m() of B was called ?
def m(self):
As discussed previously , Python
print("m of B called")
uses MRO to search for an
attribute which goes from left to
class C(A): right and then in depth first.
def m(self): Now since B is the first
print("m of C called") inherited class of D so Python
called m( ) of B
class D(B,C):
pass
Output:
 Guess The Output

class A:
obj=D()
def m(self):
obj.m()
print("m of A called")

class B(A):
def m(self):
print("m of B called")

class C(A):
def m(self):
print("m of C called")

class D(C,B):
pass
Output:
 Guess The Output

class A:
obj=D()
def m(self): obj.m()
print("m of A called")
Why m() of C was called ?
class B(A):
pass MRO goes from left to right first
and then depth first. In our case
Python will look for method m()
class C(A): in B but it won’t find it there .
def m(self): Then it will search m() in C
print("m of C called") before going to A. Since it finds
m() in C, it executes it dropping
the further search
class D(B,C):
pass
Output:
 Guess The Output

class A:
obj=D()
def m(self):
print("m of A called")
obj.m()

class B(A):
def m(self):
print("m of B called")

class C(A):
def m(self):
print("m of C called")

class D(B,C):
def m(self):
print("m of D called")
Output:
 Guess The Output

class A:
def m(self): obj=D()
print("m of A called") obj.m()
class B(A):
def m(self):
print("m of B called")

class C(A):
def m(self):
print("m of C called")

class D(B,C):
def m(self):
print("m of D called")
B.m(self)
C.m(self)
A.m(self)
Output:
 Guess The Output

class A:
def m(self): obj=D()
print("m of A called") obj.m()
class B(A):
def m(self):
print("m of B called") Why m() of A was called
A.m(self)
class C(A):
twice?
def m(self): This is because we have
print("m of C called") called A.m(self) in both B
A.m(self)
class D(B,C):
and C classes due to which
def m(self): the method m() of A gets
print("m of D called") called 2 times
B.m(self)
C.m(self)
Output:
 Using super( ) To Solve
The Previous Problem

 In the previous code the method m( ) of A was getting

called twice.

 To resolve this problem we can use super( ) function to

call m() from B and C .

 As previously mentioned Python follows MRO and never

calls same method twice so it will remove extra call to
m( ) of A and will execute m() only once
 Guess The Output

class A:
def m(self): obj=D()
print("m of A called") obj.m()
class B(A):
def m(self):
print("m of B called")
super().m()
class C(A):
def m(self):
print("m of C called")
super().m()
class D(B,C):
def m(self):
print("m of D called")
super().m()
Output: