What Does Inheritance Mean?

Techopedia Explains Inheritance

  • All the members of the base class except those with private accessibility can be accessed in the derived class.All the members of the base class are inherited from the base class except constructors and destructors.Unlike in C++, the virtual methods in a derived class need to use the modifier “override” to override an inherited member.To hide an inherited member with the same name and signature in the derived class, the “new” modifier can be used.To prevent direct instantiation of a class, the “abstract” modifier can be used.To prevent further derivation of a base class, it can be declared using “sealed” modifier.

  • It enables the construction of a hierarchy of related classes that can reuse, extend and alter the behaviors defined in the existing classes.It allows code reuse, reducing time and effort in coding and testing.It helps improve modularity and performance by dividing large pieces of code into smaller, more manageable, pieces.It forms the means to achieve polymorphism, which allows an object to represent more than one type.