- The mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (subclasses) from existing ones (superclass or base class) and forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages, an object created through inheritance (a “child object”) acquires all the properties and behaviors of the parent object (except: constructors, destructors, overloaded operators, and friend functions of the base class). Inheritance allows to create classes that are built upon existing classes, to specify a new implementation while maintaining the same behaviors (realizing an interface), to reuse code, and to independently extend original software via public classes and interfaces. ← Wikipedia
- Related terms: Virtual inheritance · Multiple inheritance · Mixin · Method
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