[ Course Documents ] : [ Object-Oriented Programming ]

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Inheritance

• In the simplest case, a class inherits all of the entities of its parent

• Inheritance can be complicated by access controls to encapsulated entities
  • A class can hide entities from its subclasses
  • A class can hide entities from its clients

• Besides inheriting methods as is, a class can modify an inherited method
  • The new one overrides the inherited one
  • The method in the parent is overridden

• Single vs. multiple inheritance

• One disadvantage of inheritance for reuse: Creates interdependencies among classes that complicate maintenance