Inheritance

Introduction

Inheritance is a mechanism that enables one
class to inherit all the behaviour and
attributes of another class.

Through inheritance, a class immediately
has all the functionality of an existing class.
Because of this, you must define only how
the new class is different from an existing
class.

Inheritance is one of the primary features of
OOP — which is a form of software reuse.
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 2
 Introduction cont...
 A class that is inherited is called superclass
 The class that inherits is called subclass
 A subclass is a specialized version of a
superclass
 extends – (or “inherits from”) keyword is used
to inherit superclass
 Java does not support multiple superclasses into
single subclass (this differs from C++)
 A subclass can be a superclass of another
subclass
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 3
Inheritance example
//create superclass
public class A {
int x,y;
void showXY(){
System.out.println("x and y: "+x+ "
"+y);
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 4
Inheritance example
cont…
//create subclass by extending class A
class B extends A{
int z;
void showZ(){
System.out.println("k: "+z);
}
void sum(){
int sum=x+y+z;
System.out.println("sum: "+sum);
}
}

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 5

Inheritance example
cont…
class ABTest{
public static void main(String[] args){
A superObj=new A();
B subObj=new B();
//The superclass may be used by itself
superObj.x=10;
superObj.y=20;
System.out.println("Contents of the superObj");
superObj.showXY();
System.out.println();

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 6

Inheritance example
cont…
//The subclass has access to all public members of its superclass
subObj.x=7;
subObj.y=8;
subObj.z=9;
System.out.println("Contents of the subObj");
subObj.showXY();
subObj.showZ();
System.out.println();
System.out.println("The sum of x, y, and z in subObj");
subObj.sum();
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 7
Inheritance and member
access
• A subclass cannot access those members
of the superclass that have been declared
as private.
• A class’s private members are accessible
only from within the class itself.
• A subclass can change the state of private
superclass instance variables only through
non-private methods provided in the
superclass and inherited by the subclass.

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 8

Inheritance and member
access cont…
public class X {
int number1, number2;
private int number3;
void setNumber3(int number){
number3=number;
}
int getNumber3(){
return number3;
}
}

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 9

Inheritance and member
access cont…
class Y extends X{
void sum(){
int
sum=number1+number2+super.getNumber3();
/*error - number3 is not directly accessible,
instead use get method as done here!*/
System.out.println(sum);
}
}

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 10

Inheritance and member
access cont…
class XYTest{
public static void main(String[] args){
Y y=new Y();
y.number1=4;
y.number2=8;
y.setNumber3(9);
y.sum();
}//Note – two classes must be in different
packages
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 11
 Box example
 A Box class has three instance variables
width, height and depth and one member
method volume. It also has different
formats of constructor methods to
initialize the instance variables, such as
 Through parameters w, h and d
 No parameter
 Single parameter length of each side
 A BoxWeight class that has all the
properties of Box except another instance
variable weight. To initialize this variable,
it needs constructor
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 12
 Box example cont…
 Another class ColorBox has all the
properties of Box except another
property color
 Write down the structures of these
three classes (ColorBox left as an
assignment)
 The example in the class will
include the two classes only i.e.,
Box and weightBox.
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 13
 Using super keyword
 If a superclass keeps its data members
private, then there would be no way for
subclass to directly access or initialize
its parent's instance variables
 The solution is the use of keyword super
 Whenever a subclass needs to refer to
its immediate superclass, it can do so by
use of the keyword super
 Super has two general forms,
 For accessing constructors
 For accessing hidden member of superclass
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 14
 Using super to call superclass
constructors
 super (parameter-list)
 super( ) must always be the first statement
executed inside a subclass’ constructor
// BoxWeight now uses super to initialize its Box
attributes.
class BoxWeight extends Box {
double weight; // weight of box
// initialize width, height, and depth using super()
BoxWeight(double w, double h, double d, double m) {
super(w, h, d); // call superclass constructor
weight = m;
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 15
Box example
//superclass Box
public class Box {
float length,width,depth;
public Box(float l,float w,float d){
length=l;
width=w;
depth=d;
}
float volume(){
return length*width*depth;
}
}//end superclass Box

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 16

Box example cont…
class BoxWeight extends Box{
float weight;
BoxWeight(float l, float w, float d, float wt){
//initializing constructor of subclass using super
super(l,w,d);
weight=wt;
}
float volumeWeightBox(){
return super.volume();
}
}//end subclass BoxWeight

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 17

Box example cont…
class BoxTest{
public static void main(String[] args){
Box eb=new Box(5,4,3);
BoxWeight wb=new BoxWeight(5,4,3,12);

System.out.println("Empty box details");

System.out.println("The volume is "+eb.volume());

System.out.println("\nWeighing box details");

System.out.println("The volume is "+wb.volumeWeightBox());
System.out.println("The weight is "+wb.weight);

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 18

Box example cont…
System.out.println("\nInstances of the two boxes details");
System.out.println("Is an object of subclass object of
superclass? "
+(wb instanceof Box));
System.out.println("Is an object of superclass object
of subclass? "
+(eb instanceof BoxWeight));
}//end method main
}//end class BoxTest

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 19

 A second use for super
• Here super acts as somewhat like this.
• Mostly applicable when member names
of a subclass hide members by the
same name in the superclass.
• This practice is also known as variable
shadowing. Shadowing refers to the
practice of using two variables with the
same name within scopes that overlap.
• The higher-level scope is hidden
because the variable with lower-level
scope overrides it.
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 20
 Method overriding
 When a method in a subclass has the
same name and type signature as a
method in its superclass, then the
method in the subclass is said to
override the method in the superclass.
 When an overridden method is called
from within a subclass, it will always
refer to the version of that method
defined by the subclass.

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 21

Method overriding cont…
public class Number {
int number1, number2;
void showNumbers(){
//display number1 and number2
System.out.println("number1 and
number2: "+number1+" "+number2);
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 22
Method overriding cont…
class MoreNumber extends Number{
int number3;
//display number3 - this overrides
showNumbers() in Number
void showNumbers(){
System.out.println("number3: "+number3);
}
}

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 23

Method overriding cont…
class NumberTest{
public static void main(String[] args){
MoreNumber mn=new MoreNumber();
mn.number1=1;
mn.number2=2;
mn.number3=4;
mn.showNumbers();
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 24
Method overriding cont…
• Accessing superclass version of
overridden method using super keyword.
• E.g.,
void showNumbers(){
super.showNumbers();//this solves
the problem of overriding
System.out.println("number3:
"+number3);
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 25
 Using final to prevent
overriding
 Methods declared as final cannot be
overridden
class A {
final void meth() {
System.out.println("This is a final method.");
}
}
class B extends A {
void meth() { // ERROR! Can't override.
System.out.println("Illegal!");
}
}
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 26
Using final to prevent
overriding cont…
 Normally Java resolves calls to
methods dynamically, at run time
(late binding)
 Since, final methods cannot be
overridden, a call to one can be
resolved at compile time (early
binding).

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 27

Overriding vs.
overloading
 Method overriding occurs only
when the names and the type
signatures of the two methods are
identical.
 Method overloading occurs when
the names of two or more
methods are the same within the
class but different signatures.

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 28

 Using final to prevent
inheritance
 final keyword before a class declaration
prevents it from being inherited.
 Declaring a class as final implicitly declares all
of its methods as final
final class A {
// ...
}
// The following class is illegal.
class B extends A { // ERROR! Can't subclass A
// ...
}

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 29

 The Object class
 Object class is a special type of class defined
by Java
 All other classes are subclasses of Object
 A reference variable of type object can refer
to an object of any other class
 Objects define the following methods:
 Object clone( )
 boolean equals (Object object)
 void finalize( )
 class getClass( )
 String toString( )
 void wait(long milliseconds)
© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 30
Thank you for listening!

© K.S. Mbise Inheritance Slide 31