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13.0: Introduction

Last updated

Mar 30, 2025
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- 13: Inheritance
- 13.1: Inheritance Basics

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Figure 13.1 credit: modification of work "Don't stare...only sheep dogs stare...", by Bernard Spragg. NZ/Flickr, Public Domain

Real-world entities are often described in relation to other entities. Ex: A finch is a type of bird. Similarly, classes, which represent types of real-world entities, can be related to each other.

Inheritance describes the relationship in which one class is a type of another class. Classes within inheritance relationships can inherit attributes and methods from other classes without needing to redefine everything. Thus, inheritance in object-oriented programming reduces redundancy and promotes modularity.

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