Unit 4-Inheritance &

Polymorphism
2 Inheritance

 Review of class relationships

 Uses – One class uses the services of another class, either by making
objects of that class or by using static functions of the class.
 Has A – One class’s attributes includes one or more object of another
class.
3 Inheritance

 Is A – Describes that one class is a more specific form of another class.

 For example, Triangle is a Shape, Prius is a HybridCar.

 We cannot say Shape is a Triangle, nor can we say Triangle is a

Rectangle.
4
Inheritance

 Inheritance is a fundamental object-oriented design

technique used to create and organize reusable
classes
 Reference is Chapter 8 in the book.
5
Inheritance

 Inheritance allows a software developer to derive a new class

from an existing one
 The existing class is called the parent class, or superclass, or
base class
 The derived class is called the child class or subclass
 As the name implies, the child inherits characteristics of the
parent
 That is, the child class inherits the methods and data defined by
the parent class
6
Inheritance
 Inheritance relationships are shown in a UML class diagram
using a solid arrow with an unfilled triangular arrowhead
pointing to the parent class

Car

Prius

 Proper inheritance creates an is-a

relationship, meaning the child is a
more specific version of the parent
7 Inheritance

 A programmer can tailor a derived class as needed by

adding new variables or methods, or by modifying the
inherited ones
 Software reuse is a fundamental benefit of inheritance
 By using existing software components to create new
ones, we capitalize on all the effort that went into the
design, implementation, and testing of the existing
software
8
Deriving Subclasses
 In Java, we use the reserved word extends to establish an
inheritance relationship

class Prius extends Car

{
// class contents
}

 See Words.java (page 440)

 See Book.java (page 441)
 See Dictionary.java (page 442)
9
The protected Modifier
 Visibility modifiers affect the way that class
members can be used in a child class
 Variables and methods declared with private
visibility cannot be referenced by name in a
child class
 They can be referenced in the child class if
they are declared with public visibility -- but
public variables violate the principle of
encapsulation
 There is a third visibility modifier that helps
in inheritance situations: protected
10
The protected Modifier
 The protected modifier allows a child class to
reference a variable or method directly in the child
class
 It provides more encapsulation than public
visibility, but is not as tightly encapsulated as
private visibility
 A protected variable is visible to any class in the
same package as the parent class
 The details of all Java modifiers are discussed in
Appendix E
 Protected variables and methods can be shown
with a # symbol preceding them in UML diagrams
11 Class Diagram for Words
Book
# pages : int
+ pageMessage() :
void

Words Dictionary
- definitions : int
+ main (args : String[]) :
void + definitionMessage() :
void
12
The super Reference

 Constructors are not inherited, even though they have

public visibility
 Yet we often want to use the parent's constructor to set up
the "parent's part" of the object
 The super reference can be used to refer to the parent
class, and often is used to invoke the parent's constructor
 See Words2.java (page 445)
 See Book2.java (page 446)
 See Dictionary2.java (page 447)
13 The super Reference

 A child’s constructor is responsible for calling the parent’s constructor

 The first line of a child’s constructor should use the super reference to
call the parent’s constructor
 The super reference can also be used to reference other variables and
methods defined in the parent’s class
14 Multiple Inheritance

 Java supports single inheritance, meaning that a derived

class can have only one parent class
 Multiple inheritance allows a class to be derived from two
or more classes, inheriting the members of all parents
 Collisions, such as the same variable name in two parents,
have to be resolved
 Java does not support multiple inheritance
 In most cases, the use of interfaces gives us aspects of
multiple inheritance without the overhead
15
Class Hierarchies

 A child class of one parent can be the parent of another child, forming a
class hierarchy

Business

RetailBusin ServiceBusine
ess ss

KMart Macys Kinkos

16
Class Hierarchies

 Two children of the same parent are called siblings

 Common features should be put as high in the hierarchy
as is reasonable
 An inherited member is passed continually down the line
 Therefore, a child class inherits from all its ancestor
classes
 There is no single class hierarchy that is appropriate for
all situations
17
The Object Class

 A class called Object is defined in the java.lang

package of the Java standard class library
 All classes are derived from the Object class
 If a class is not explicitly defined to be the child of an
existing class, it is assumed to be the child of the
Object class
 Therefore, the Object class is the ultimate root of all
class hierarchies
18 The Object Class

 The Object class contains a few useful methods,

which are inherited by all classes
 For example, the toString method is defined in the
Object class
 Every time we define the toString method, we are
actually overriding an inherited definition
 The toString method in the Object class is defined
to return a string that contains the name of the
object’s class along with some other information
19 The Object Class

 The equals method of the Object class returns true if

two references are aliases
 We can override equals in any class to define equality
in some more appropriate way
 As we've seen, the String class defines the equals
method to return true if two String objects contain
the same characters
 The designers of the String class have overridden
the equals method inherited from Object in favor of
a more useful version
 Contents

• Definition-polymorphism
• Types :- 1)Compile Time 2)Run Time
• Compile time polymorphism and its examples.
• Run rime polymorphism and its examples.
• Difference overloading and overriding.
• Advantages of polymorphism.
 What is polymorphism?

• Polymorphism is the concept of one entity providing multiple implementations

or behaviors(something like an Avatar).Thus polymorphism is the ability of an
object to make more than one form.
• Java is an object-oriented programming language that supports the concept
of polymorphism.
• Alternatively, it is defined as the ability of a reference variable to change
behavior according to what object instance is holding.
• This allows multiple objects of different subclasses to be treated as objects
as a single parent class, while automatically selecting the proper methods to
apply to an object based on the child class it belongs.
Peter Parker Is Polymorphic

• As a high school student, Peter

goes to school and hangs out
with friends. As Spider Man, he
bashes up baddies. Peter has
multiple behaviors based on the
context. Peter is polymorphic.
Two types of polymorphism

Compile -Time
Polymorphism

Polymorphism In
Java

Run-Time
Polymorphism
• Compile-time polymorphism refers to
behaviour that is resolved when your Java
class is compiled.
• Method overloading is an example of
compile-time polymorphism. Method
overloading is how you can use method with
same name to do different things based on
the parameters passed.

A calculator can add 2 integers. It can also

add 2 floats. The addition method adds
differently based on the inputs.
Illustration – Method Overloading
class MultiplyFun {
int Multiply(int a, int b)
{
return a * b;
Output:
} 8
int Multiply(int a, int b, int c) 42
{
return a * b * c;
}
}
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.out.println(MultiplyFun.Multiply(2, 4));

System.out.println(MultiplyFun.Multiply(2, 7, 3));
}
}
Illustration – Method Overloading
class OperatorOVERDDN {

void operator(String str1, String str2)

{
String s = str1 + str2;
System.out.println("Concatinated String - "+ s);
}
void operator(int a, int b)
{
int c = a + b;
System.out.println("Sum = " + c);
} }
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
OperatorOVERDDN obj = new
Output:
OperatorOVERDDN();
Sum = 5
obj.operator(2, 3);
Concatinated String - joenow
obj.operator("joe", "now");
} }
• Run-time polymorphism refers to
behaviour that is resolved when your Java
class is run by the JVM. Method overriding
by the sub-class is an example of run-time
polymorphism.
• Method overriding allows child
classes to provide their own
implementation of a method also
defined in the parent class.
• The JVM decides which version of the
method (the child’s or the parent’s) to call
based on the object through which the
method is invoked. Consider a SeniorCitizenAccount class. It
will provide a calculateInterest method()
that overrides the calculateInterest()
method in the parent SavingsAccount
class
 Illustration – Method Overriding
class Parent { class TestPolymorphism3 {
void Print() public static void main(String[] args)
{ {
System.out.println("parent class"); Parent a;
} a = new subclass1();
} a.Print();
class subclass1 extends Parent { a = new subclass2();
a.Print();
void Print() }
{ }
System.out.println("subclass1");
}
}
class subclass2 extends Parent { Output:
void Print() subclass1
{
subclass2
System.out.println("subclass2");
}
}
Advantages Of Polymorphism

Code Ease Of
Cleanliness Implementation

Aligned With Overloaded

Real World Constructors

Reusability And
Extensibility
Thank you