General Info: Inheritance

The concept of a class makes it possible to define subclasses that share some or all of the main class characteristics. This is called inheritance. Inheritance also allows you to reuse code more efficiently. In a class tree, inheritance is used to design classes vertically. (You can use Interfaces to design classes horizontally within a class tree.) With inheritance, you are defining an "is-a" relationship (i.e. a chow is-a dog). Analysts using UML call this generalization where you generalize specific classes into general parent classes.

Java Inheritance

Simple syntax example of class inheritance.

Implementing design patterns can be difficult and little sample code exists that walks you through the process. The purpose of this article is to walk through the implementation of a program that uses the Composite and Visitor design patterns. The sample project is written in the object-oriented language, Java, but it could just as easily have been written in C++.