Log out Go to App
Go to App

Learning Materials

Features

Discover

Chapter 10: Problem 37

How does inheritance support code reuse and make code easier to main\(\operatorname{tain} ?\)

Short Answer

Expert verified
Answer: Inheritance in object-oriented programming promotes code reusability by enabling a new class (subclass) to inherit the properties and methods of an existing class (parent class). This allows the subclass to use the properties and methods of the parent class without duplication, increasing code reusability. It improves code maintenance by organizing code in a hierarchical structure, with common functionality shared among classes. This hierarchy makes the code easier to understand, modify, and maintain. Changes made to the parent class are automatically propagated to derived classes, reducing the risk of bugs and ensuring consistency.

Step by step solution

01

Introduction to Inheritance

Inheritance is one of the four fundamental principles of object-oriented programming (OOP), along with encapsulation, polymorphism, and abstraction. It's a mechanism that promotes code reuse and maintainability by allowing classes to inherit properties and methods from existing classes, forming a hierarchical relationship between them.
02

Benefits of Inheritance

The main benefits of inheritance include code reuse, extensibility, and maintainability. By inheriting properties and methods from existing classes, new classes can be created with minimal additional code, resulting in both time and effort savings. This also allows for easier code management and makes it less prone to errors.
03

Code Reuse With Inheritance

Code reuse is the practice of using existing code to implement new features and functionalities. Inheritance allows code reuse by enabling a new class (subclass/derived class) to inherit the properties and methods of an existing class (parent class/superclass). This means that the subclass can use the properties and methods of the parent class without the need to write them again, thus reducing duplication and increasing the reusability of the code.
04

Code Maintainability With Inheritance

Code maintainability refers to how easily a piece of code can be modified or extended to include new features or address defects. Inheritance significantly improves code maintainability by organizing the code in a hierarchy, with common functionality shared among various classes. This hierarchy makes the code easier to understand, modify, and maintain, as changes to the parent class can be automatically propagated to all derived classes, reducing the risk of introducing bugs.
05

Example: Inheritance in Action

Let's consider an example to demonstrate the benefits of using inheritance. Suppose there's a base class called 'Animal' with properties like 'name', 'age', and 'type', and methods like 'speak' and 'eat'. There can be several subclasses, such as 'Cat', 'Dog', and 'Bird', which inherit the properties and methods from the 'Animal' class. By using inheritance, we only need to define the common properties and methods once in the 'Animal' class and don't need to rewrite them in every subclass. This promotes code reuse and makes the code more maintainable as any changes to these properties or methods will automatically be reflected in all subclasses.

Unlock Step-by-Step Solutions & Ace Your Exams!

  • Full Textbook Solutions

    Get detailed explanations and key concepts

  • Unlimited Al creation

    Al flashcards, explanations, exams and more...

  • Ads-free access

    To over 500 millions flashcards

  • Money-back guarantee

    We refund you if you fail your exam.

Start your free trial

Over 30 million students worldwide already upgrade their learning with Vaia!

One App. One Place for Learning.

All the tools & learning materials you need for study success - in one app.

Get started for free

Most popular questions from this chapter

The private member function DayofYear: :check_date in Display 10.4 allows some illegal dates to get through, such as February \(30 .\) Redefine the member function DayofYear: :check_date so that it ends the program whenever it finds any illegal date. Allow February to contain 29 days, so you account for leap years. (Hint: This is a bit tedious and the function definition is a bit long, but it is not very difficult.

Suppose your friend defines an ADT as a C++ class in the way we described in Section \(10.3 .\) You are given the task of writing a program that uses this ADT. That is, you must write the main part of the program as well as any nonmember functions that are used in the main part of the program. The ADT is very long and you do not have a lot of time to write this program. What parts of the ADT do you need to read and what parts can you safely ignore?

Explain what publ ic: and private: do in a class definition. In particular, explain why we do not just make everything public: and save difficulty in access.

Here is an initialization of a structure type. Tell what happens with each initialization. Note any problems with these initializations. struct Date \\{ int month; int day; int year; \\}; a. Date due_date \(=\\{12,21\\}\) b. Date due_date \(=\\{12,21,2022\\}\) c. Date due_date \(=\\{12,21,20,22\\}\) d. Date due_date \(=\\{12,21,22\\}\)

Given the following class definition, write an appropriate definition for the member function set: class Temperature \\{ public: void set(double new_degrees, char new_scale); //Sets the member variables to the values given as / / arguments. double degrees; char scale; //'F' for Fahrenheit or 'C' for Celsius. \\};
See all solutions

Recommended explanations on Computer Science Textbooks

Big Data

Read Explanation

Theory of Computation

Read Explanation

Databases

Read Explanation

Computer Programming

Read Explanation

Game Design in Computer Science

Read Explanation

Algorithms in Computer Science

Read Explanation
View all explanations

What do you think about this solution?

We value your feedback to improve our textbook solutions.

Study anywhere. Anytime. Across all devices.

Sign-up for free