Single Inheritance

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What Does Single Inheritance Mean?

Single inheritance enables a derived class to inherit properties and behavior from a single parent class. It allows a derived class to inherit the properties and behavior of a base class, thus enabling code reusability as well as adding new features to the existing code. This makes the code much more elegant and less repetitive. Inheritance is one of the key features of object-oriented programming (OOP).

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Single inheritance is safer than multiple inheritance if it is approached in the right way. It also enables a derived class to call the parent class implementation for a specific method if this method is overridden in the derived class or the parent class constructor.

Techopedia Explains Single Inheritance

The inheritance concept is used in many programming languages, including C++, Java, PHP, C#, and Visual Basic. To implement inheritance, C++ uses the “:” operator, while Java and PHP use the “extend” keyword, and Visual Basic uses the keyword “inherits.” Java and C# enable single inheritance only, while other languages like C++ support multiple inheritance.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.