Inheritance (object-oriented Programming)

Inheritance (object-oriented Programming)

In object-oriented programming (OOP), inheritance is a way to reuse code of existing objects, or to establish a subtype from an existing object, or both, depending upon programming language support. In classical inheritance where objects are defined by classes, classes can inherit attributes and behavior from pre-existing classes called base classes, superclasses, parent classes or ancestor classes. The resulting classes are known as derived classes, subclasses or child classes. The relationships of classes through inheritance gives rise to a hierarchy. In prototype-based programming, objects can be defined directly from other objects without the need to define any classes, in which case this feature is called differential inheritance.

The inheritance concept was invented in 1968 for Simula.