👨‍👦 Inheritance

Inheritance allows a class (the child or derived class) to inherit attributes and methods from another class (the parent or base class).

This promotes code reusability. Instead of rewriting logic, you extend it!

🧬 Basic Inheritance

To inherit from a class, you put the parent class name in parentheses when defining the child class.

class Animal:
    def eat(self):
        print("Munch munch...")

class Dog(Animal):  # Dog inherits from Animal
    def bark(self):
        print("Woof!")

d = Dog()
d.eat()   # Inherited from Animal!
d.bark()  # Defined in Dog

🦸 The super() Function

When you want to use the parent's method but also add something extra, you use super(). This is very common in the __init__ method.

class Animal:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

class Dog(Animal):
    def __init__(self, name, breed):
        # Call the parent's __init__ to handle the name
        super().__init__(name)
        self.breed = breed

🔄 Overriding Methods

A child class can provide a different implementation for a method that is already defined in its parent class. This is called method overriding.

class Cat(Animal):
    def eat(self):
        print("The cat eats gracefully.")

c = Cat("Whiskers")
c.eat() # Output: The cat eats gracefully.

🌳 Multi-level Inheritance

You can inherit from a class that inherits from another class.

Animal -> Mammal -> Dog

🕸️ Multiple Inheritance

Python supports inheriting from multiple classes at once (less common, can be complex).

class FlyingCar(Car, Airplane):
    pass

🔑 Key Takeaways

1. Inheritance: Creates a hierarchy (Parent -> Child).
2. Reusability: Child classes get parent features for free.
3. super(): Access parent methods.
4. Overriding: Change inherited behavior in the child class.
5. isinstance(obj, Class): Check if an object belongs to a class or its parents.

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Next: Polymorphism