Inheritance

Inheritance enables you to extend the functionality of an existing class.

In inheritance, a superclass or a parent class is the one from which another class inherits attributes and behavior. A subclass or child class is a class that inherits attributes and behavior from a superclass.

Note

Th object class is called as a supermost class. Inheritance is applicable only for nonstatic classes.

A Java program with an inheritance example

The following is an example of inheritance in a Java program:

package MyFirstPackage;

class SampleClass1 {
  void sampleMethod(){
  System.out.println("executing sample method");
}
 }
 
class SampleClass2 extends SampleClass1 {
    void sampleMethod1(){
    System.out.println("executing sample method 2");
  }
  }

  
public  class Inhertance {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SampleClass2 methodcall = new SampleClass2();
    methodcall.sampleMethod1();
    methodcall.sampleMethod();
  }
}

The output of the preceding code...