INHERITANCE

Inheritance 

Inheritance is the process of forming a new class from an existing class or base class.

The base class is also known as parent class or super class, the new class that is formed is called derived class.

Derived class is also known as a child class or sub class. Inheritance helps in reducing the overall code size of the program, which is an important concept in object-oriented programming.

It is classifieds into different types, they are

Ø Single level inheritance : In single level inheritance, there is only one base class and has only one derived class.   

                

Example of single level inheritance:

class Base
{

};

class Derv: public Base
{

     };

                           
      

Ø Multi-level inheritance : In multi level inheritance, there will be a chain of inheritance with a class derived from only one parent and will have only one child class.   

 Example of multi level inheritance:

 class A
{

};

class B: public A
{

 };

 class C: public B
{

 };

Ø Multiple inheritance : One class being derived from multiple parent classes.

Example of multiple inheritance:

class A
{

};

class B
{

 };

class C: public B, public A
{

};

     

Ø Hybrid inheritance : It is a mixture of 2 or more of above types of inheritance. There is no pattern of deriving from classes. 

 Example of hybrid inheritance:

 class A
{

};

class B
{

 };

 class C: public A, public B
{

 };

 class D: public A
{

};
 

class X: public D, public C
{

};

Ø Hierarchial inheritance : Many classes deriving from one class. 

Example of hierarchical inheritance:

class A
{

};

class B: public A
{

};

class C: public A
{

};