Lecture for April 3rd

Inheritance

The base class, super class, or parent class is the initial class that we are working with. Let’s say that you want to extend the class, or add additional functionality. The class that inherits from the parent class is called the child class, subclass or derived class.

Child Class Syntax

public class Truck extends Car {
    // Truck Appropriate Fields
    // Necessary methods for truck
}

This code adds all the methods from Car into the Truck class. You can then add methods that is specific to a Truck into the Truck class.

A child class has all parent fields and access to all parent methods!

Visibility Modifiers

Recall the words public and private

The public modifier makes the field/method accessible by any class

The private modifier makes the field/method only accessible within the method itself

The protected modifier makes the field/method accessible within the same class or any subclasses.

Overriding a Method

You can override a parent class method by declaring a method in the child class with the same…

• name
• number of paramters
• parameter types

but this method would have different behavior!