10. Class Inheritance
10.1. Class Inheritance
Inheritance is a way of reusing code by inheriting the structure from the parent class.
The parent class is also called the base class or super class.
The child class is also called the derived class or subclass.
Use Inheritance when the child classes have common features (variables/attributes and functions/methods) with the parent class.
The child class inherits from the parent class; the child class automatically takes on all the attributes and methods of the parent class.
The child class can change (override) some features or add (extend) features without affecting the parent class.
The parent class must be part of the current file and must appear before the child class in
the file.
| To create a child class from a parent class, place the name of the parent class in parentheses after the child class name. e.g ChildGame(ParentGame)
.
10.2. super
The super() function is used to give access to attributes and methods of a parent class to extend their functionality.
The super() function is used to extend their functionality with minimal code changes.
The super() function returns an object that represents the parent class.
10.3. Magic8Pos(Magic8) - modify attribute
In the code below, the Magic8Pos class uses the super() function and modifies the self.responses attribute that would be inherited from the Magic8 class.
In the code below,
super().__init__(magic_text=8)
, calls the _init__() method from Magic8 class, which gives an Magic8Pos instance all the attributes of its parent class, Magic8.class Magic8:
def __init__(self, magic_text=8):
self.magic_text = magic_text
self.responses = ["For sure", "Yes", "No", "No way"]
class Magic8Pos(Magic8):
"""modifies responses to just positive ones"""
def __init__(self, magic_text=8):
super().__init__(magic_text=8)
self.responses = ["It is certain", "Yes"]
game1 = Magic8()
print(game1.responses)
game2 = Magic8Pos(Magic8)
print(game2.responses)
10.5. Multiple Class Inheritance
The code below shows an example of multiple inheritance.
The LevelSpeedGame class inherits from both classes: LevelGame, SpeedGame.
class LevelGame:
game_number = 0
def __init__(self, level):
self.level = level
LevelGame.game_number += 1
def increase_level(self):
self.level += 1
class SpeedGame:
def __init__(self, speed):
self.speed = speed
def set_speed(self, speed):
self.speed = speed
class LevelSpeedGame(LevelGame, SpeedGame):
def __init__(self, level, speed):
LevelGame.__init__(self, level)
SpeedGame.__init__(self, speed)
game = LevelSpeedGame(level=1, speed=10)
print(game.level, game.game_number, game.speed)
game2 = LevelSpeedGame(2, 20)
print(game2.level, game2.game_number, game2.speed)