Inheritance

Definition - What does Inheritance mean?

Inheritance is a mechanism wherein a new class is derived from an existing class. In Java, classes may inherit or acquire the properties and methods of other classes. A class derived from another class is called a subclass, whereas the class from which a subclass is derived is called a superclass. A subclass can have only one superclass, whereas a superclass may have one or more subclasses.

The keyword “extends” is used to derive a subclass from the superclass, as illustrated by the following syntax:

 class Name_of_subclass extends Name_of superclass {

//new fields and methods that would define the subclass go here

 }

 If you want to derive a subclass Rectangle from a superclass Shapes, you can do it as follows:

 class Rectangle extends Shapes {

 ….

}