A More Practical Example on Inheritance

A More Practical Example on Inheritance:

 

Let's look at a more practical example that will help illustrate the power of inheritance. Here, the final version of the Box class developed in the preceding Post will be extended to include a fourth component called weight. Thus, the new class will contain a box's width, height, depth, and weight.

 

// This program uses inheritance to extend Box.

class Box {

double width;

double height;

double depth;

// construct clone of an object

Box(Box ob) { // pass object to constructor

width = ob.width;

height = ob.height;

depth = ob.depth;

}

// constructor used when all dimensions specified

Box(double w, double h, double d) {

width = w;

height = h;

depth = d;

}

// constructor used when no dimensions specified

Box() {

width = -1; // use -1 to indicate

height = -1; // an uninitialized

depth = -1; // box

}

// constructor used when cube is created

Box(double len) {

width = height = depth = len;

}

// compute and return volume

double volume() {

return width * height * depth;

}

}

// Here, Box is extended to include weight.

class BoxWeight extends Box {

double weight; // weight of box

// constructor for BoxWeight

BoxWeight(double w, double h, double d, double m) {

width = w;

height = h;

depth = d;

weight = m;

}

}

class DemoBoxWeight {

public static void main(String args[]) {

BoxWeight mybox1 = new BoxWeight(10, 20, 15, 34.3);

BoxWeight mybox2 = new BoxWeight(2, 3, 4, 0.076);

double vol;

vol = mybox1.volume();

System.out.println("Volume of mybox1 is " + vol);

System.out.println("Weight of mybox1 is " + mybox1.weight);

System.out.println();

vol = mybox2.volume();

System.out.println("Volume of mybox2 is " + vol);

System.out.println("Weight of mybox2 is " + mybox2.weight);

}

}

 

The output from this program is shown here:

 

Volume of mybox1 is 3000.0

Weight of mybox1 is 34.3

Volume of mybox2 is 24.0

Weight of mybox2 is 0.076

 

BoxWeight inherits all of the characteristics of Box and adds to them the weight component. It is not necessary for BoxWeight to re-create all of the features found in Box. It can simply extend Box to meet its own purposes.

 

A major advantage of inheritance is that once you have created a superclass that defines the attributes common to a set of objects, it can be used to create any number of more specific subclasses. Each subclass can precisely tailor its own classification.

 

For example, the following class inherits Box and adds a color attribute:

 

// Here, Box is extended to include color.

class ColorBox extends Box {

int color; // color of box

ColorBox(double w, double h, double d, int c) {

width = w;

height = h;

depth = d;

color = c;

}

}

 

Remember, once you have created a superclass that defines the general aspects of an object, that superclass can be inherited to form specialized classes. Each subclass simply adds its own, unique attributes. This is the essence of inheritance.