What is Inheritance

Inheritance is one of the key concepts in object-oriented programming. It allows programmers to create new classes based on existing ones, thereby promoting code reusability, flexibility, and scalability. Inheritance plays a vital role in coding since it helps to reduce the code complexity and enhance the readability. Understanding how inheritance works in programming is essential for every developer who wants to write efficient and maintainable code. In this tutorial, we will explore the basics of inheritance and how to implement it in your code.

OOPs Concepts - Inheritance

• Inheritance is an object-oriented programming concept in which one class can derive characteristics from another class. 
• If class A need to include some properties that are already present in class B, then class A can inherit from class B rather than writing those properties all over again.
• Inheritance is an important tool of ensuring code reuse.
• The class that inherits is called the child class.
• The class from which properties are inherited is called parent class.
• There are different types of inheritance - 
  • Single inheritance - If child class has only one parent class 
  • Multiple inheritance - If child class has more than one parent classes
  • Multilevel inheritance - If a class inherits from a class which itself inherits from another class.
  • Hierarchical inheritance - If one parent class has many child classes.
  • Hybrid inheritance - A combination of multiple and multilevel inheritance.

Real world example of Inheritance

• Suppose we have a class  Employee .
•   Employee  class has following data members : 

Employee : 
	Name of the Employee
	Employee Id
	Designation
	experience
	email-Id
	Address
	Attendance
	Perks
	
	

• Suppose we want to create a class  Contract_Employee  : 
•   Contract_Employee  will have all the data members of the employee class.
• In addition to these,  Contract_Employee  will also have a data member contract_period .
• So instead of writing the above data members all over again - 
  •   Contract_Employee  class will inherit from  Employee  class 
  • then it will add the new data member contract_period in its definition.
• The  Contract_Employee  class will hence have the following data members :

Contract_Employee : 
	Name of the Employee
	Employee Id
	Designation
	experience
	email-Id
	Address
	Attendance
	Perks
	contract_period