December 7, 2021

Programmingempire

In this article I will explain How to Implement Inheritance in Python. In brief, inheritance allows the child class to inherit the properties of the parent class. While the parent class or the base class is the class that is being inherited. While the child class or the subclass is the class that inherits properties from the base class.

Creating the Base Class

We create the base class as an ordinary class containg attributes, methods, and the constructor. The __init__() function is similar to the constructor. Like a C# class constructor, it initializes the state of the object. Also, a python class can use the self keyword that represents the instance of the class. Therefore we can use the self keyword to access the attributes and methods of a class.

While, we can create attributes of a class within the __init__() function. However, we can only use these attributes through the object of that class.

Creating a Subclass in Python

In order to create a subclass in python, we need to enclose the base class name in a parenthesis which follows the subclass name. For example, we can create a subclass as follows:

class subclass_name(baseclass_name):

The following example demonstrates how to create subclasses in python. As can be seen, the class named MyClass is the base class. While, the classes MySubClass1 and MySubClass2 are derived classes. Furter, the base class contains three methods. Also, it has two instance attributes – x, and y.

Using the pass Keyword

Basically, pass represents a null statement in Python. When this statement encounters, nothing happens. The following definition of MySubClass2 indicates that, this class doesn’t add further in its definition.

Overriding Methods in Python

As can be seen in the definition of MyClass and MySubClass2, both of these classes contain the method show(). Therefore, the show() method in MySubClass2 overrides the definition of show() method defined in MyClass.

class MyClass:
	def __init__(self, x, y):
		print("__init__() Function of Parent Class...")
		self.x=x
		self.y=y

	def showSum(self):
		print("Sum = ", self.x+self.y)

	def showProduct(self):
		print("Product = ", self.x*self.y)
	def show(self):
		print("x = ", self.x, " y = ", self.y)

class MySubClass1(MyClass):
	pass

class MySubClass2(MyClass):
	def __init__(self, x, y, z):
		super().__init__(x,y)
		print("__init__() function of Sub Class 2...")
		self.z=z
	def ThreeSum(self):
		print("Sum of 3 = ", self.x+self.y+self.z)

	def ThreeProduct(self):
		print("Product of 3 = ", self.x*self.y*self.z)
	def show(self):
		print("x = ", self.x, " y = ", self.y, " z = ", self.z)


print("Creating First Object of Parent Class")	
ob1=MyClass(45, 27)
ob1.show()
ob1.showSum()
ob1.showProduct()


print("Creating Second Object of Sub Class 1")	
ob2=MySubClass1(8, 16)
ob2.show()
ob2.showSum()
ob2.showProduct()


print("Creating Third Object of Sub Class 2")
ob3=MySubClass2(11, 54, 39)
ob3.show()
ob3.ThreeSum()
ob3.ThreeProduct()

Output

Programmingempire

Creating the Base Class

Creating a Subclass in Python

Using the pass Keyword

Overriding Methods in Python

Further Reading

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