Inheritance: Sub Class: The Class That Inherits Properties From Another Class Is Called Sub Class or

INHERITANCE
The capability of a class to derive properties and characteristics from another class is
called Inheritance. Inheritance is one of the most important feature of Object Oriented
Programming.
Sub Class: The class that inherits properties from another class is called Sub class or
Derived Class.
Super Class:The class whose properties are inherited by sub class is called Base
Class or Super class.
Why and when to use inheritance?
Consider a group of vehicles. You need to create classes for Bus, Car and Truck. The
methods fuelAmount(), capacity(), applyBrakes() will be same for all of the three
classes. If we create these classes avoiding inheritance then we have to write all of
these functions in each of the three classes as shown in below figure:
You can clearly see that above process results in duplication of same code 3 times.
This increases the chances of error and data redundancy. To avoid this type of
situation, inheritance is used. If we create a class Vehicle and write these three
functions in it and inherit the rest of the classes from the vehicle class, then we can
simply avoid the duplication of data and increase re-usability. Look at the below diagram
in which the three classes are inherited from vehicle class:
Using inheritance, we have to write the functions only one time instead of three times as
we have inherited rest of the three classes from base class(Vehicle).
For creating a sub-class which is inherited from the base class we have to follow the
below syntax.
Syntax:
class subclass_name : access_mode base_class_name

{
//body of subclass
};
Here, subclass_name is the name of the sub class, access_mode is the mode in

which you want to inherit this sub class for example: public, private etc.
and base_class_name is the name of the base class from which you want to inherit the
sub class.
Note: A derived class doesn’t inherit access to private data members. However, it does
inherit a full parent object, which contains any private members which that class
declares.
// C++ program to demonstrate implementation
// of Inheritance

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

//Base class
class Parent
{
public:
int id_p;
};

// Sub class inheriting from Base Class(Parent)
class Child : public Parent
{
public:
int id_c;
};

//main function
int main()
{

Child obj1;

// An object of class child has all data members
// and member functions of class parent
obj1.id_c = 7;
obj1.id_p = 91;
cout << "Child id is " << obj1.id_c << endl;
cout << "Parent id is " << obj1.id_p << endl;

return 0;
}
Output:
Child id is 7
Parent id is 91
In the above program the ‘Child’ class is publicly inherited from the ‘Parent’ class so the
public data members of the class ‘Parent’ will also be inherited by the class ‘Child’.
Modes of Inheritance
1. Public mode: If we derive a sub class from a public base class. Then the public
member of the base class will become public in the derived class and protected
members of the base class will become protected in derived class.
2. Protected mode: If we derive a sub class from a Protected base class. Then
both public member and protected members of the base class will become
protected in derived class.
3. Private mode: If we derive a sub class from a Private base class. Then both
public member and protected members of the base class will become Private in
derived class.
Note : The private members in the base class cannot be directly accessed in the
derived class, while protected members can be directly accessed. For example,
Classes B, C and D all contain the variables x, y and z in below example. It is just
question of access.
// C++ Implementation to show that a derived class

// doesn’t inherit access to private data members.
// However, it does inherit a full parent object
class A
{
public:
int x;
protected:
int y;
private:
int z;
};

class B : public A
{
// x is public
// y is protected
// z is not accessible from B
};

class C : protected A
{
// x is protected
// y is protected
// z is not accessible from C
};

class D : private A // 'private' is default for classes
{
// x is private
// y is private
// z is not accessible from D
};
The below table summarizes the above three modes and shows the access specifier of
the members of base class in the sub class when derived in public, protected and
private modes:
Types of Inheritance in C++
1. Single Inheritance: In single inheritance, a class is allowed to inherit from only

one class. i.e. one sub class is inherited by one base class only.
Syntax:
2. class subclass_name : access_mode base_class
3. {
4. //body of subclass
5. };
// C++ program to explain

// Single inheritance
#include <iostream>

// base class
class Vehicle {
public:
Vehicle()
{
cout << "This is a Vehicle" << endl;
}
};

// sub class derived from two base classes
class Car: public Vehicle{

};

// main function
int main()
{
// creating object of sub class will
// invoke the constructor of base classes
Car obj;
return 0;
}
Output:
This is a vehicle
6. Multiple Inheritance: Multiple Inheritance is a feature of C++ where a class can

inherit from more than one classes. i.e one sub class is inherited from more than
one base classes.
Syntax:
7. class subclass_name : access_mode base_class1, access_mode
base_class2, ....
8. {
9. //body of subclass
10. };
Here, the number of base classes will be separated by a comma (‘, ‘) and access
mode for every base class must be specified.
// C++ program to explain

// multiple inheritance
#include <iostream>

// first base class
class Vehicle {
public:
Vehicle()
{
}
};

// second base class
class FourWheeler {
public:
FourWheeler()
{
cout << "This is a 4 wheeler Vehicle" << endl;
}
};

class Car: public Vehicle, public FourWheeler {

};

// main function
int main()
{
// creating object of sub class will
// invoke the constructor of base classes
Car obj;
return 0;
}
Output:
This is a Vehicle
This is a 4 wheeler Vehicle
Please visit this link to learn multiple inheritance in details.
11. Multilevel Inheritance: In this type of inheritance, a derived class is created from
another derived class.
// C++ program to implement

// Multilevel Inheritance
#include <iostream>

// base class
class Vehicle
{
public:
Vehicle()
{
}
};
class fourWheeler: public Vehicle
{ public:
fourWheeler()
{
cout<<"Objects with 4 wheels are vehicles"<<endl;
}
};
class Car: public fourWheeler{
public:
car()
{
cout<<"Car has 4 Wheels"<<endl;
}
};

// main function
int main()
{
//creating object of sub class will
//invoke the constructor of base classes
Car obj;
return 0;
}
output:
This is a Vehicle
Objects with 4 wheels are vehicles
Car has 4 Wheels

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INHERITANCE

Why and when to use inheritance?

class subclass_name : access_mode base_class_name

Here, subclass_name is the name of the sub class, access_mode is the mode in

// C++ Implementation to show that a derived class

1. Single Inheritance: In single inheritance, a class is allowed to inherit from only

// C++ program to explain

6. Multiple Inheritance: Multiple Inheritance is a feature of C++ where a class can

// C++ program to explain

// C++ program to implement

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