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Composition over inheritance (or composite reuse principle) in object-oriented programming (OOP) is the principle that classes should favor polymorphic behavior and code reuse by their composition (by containing instances of other classes that implement the desired functionality) over inheritance from a base or parent class. [2]
The class A serves as a base class for the derived class B, which in turn serves as a base class for the derived class C. The class B is known as intermediate base class because it provides a link for the inheritance between A and C. The chain ABC is known as inheritance path. A derived class with multilevel inheritance is declared as follows:
In comparison, a "class" is an abstract thing, in which objects can belong. For example, all kilogram-objects are in the class of KilogramObject, which might be a subclass of MetricObject, and so on. Prototypal inheritance in JavaScript is described by Douglas Crockford as You make prototype objects, and then … make new instances.
Not all languages support multiple inheritance. For example, Java allows a class to implement multiple interfaces, but only inherit from one class. [22] If multiple inheritance is allowed, the hierarchy is a directed acyclic graph (or DAG for short), otherwise it is a tree. The hierarchy has classes as nodes and inheritance relationships as links.
The decoration features (e.g., methods, properties, or other members) are usually defined by an interface, mixin (a.k.a. trait) or class inheritance which is shared by the decorators and the decorated object. In the previous example, the class Component is inherited by both the ConcreteComponent and the subclasses that descend from Decorator.
Inheritance, by contrast, typically targets the type rather than the instances, and is restricted to compile time. On the other hand, inheritance can be statically type-checked, while delegation generally cannot without generics (although a restricted version of delegation can be statically typesafe [7]). Delegation can be termed "run-time ...
Some classify prototype-based programming as object-based even though it supports inheritance and subtyping albeit not via a class concept. Instead an object inherits its state and behavior from a template object. A commonly used language with prototype-based programming support is JavaScript;
In Simula, classes are defined in a block in which attributes, methods and class initialization are all defined together; thus all the methods that can be invoked on a class are defined together, and the definition of the class is complete. In Flavors, a mixin is a class from which another class can inherit slot definitions and methods. The ...