Python MMN
Types of Inheritance
In Python, based upon the number of child and parent classes involved, there
are five types of inheritance. The types of inheritance are listed below:
1. Single inheritance
2. Multiple Inheritance
3. Multilevel inheritance
4. Hierarchical Inheritance
5. Hybrid Inheritance
Single Inheritance
In single inheritance, a child class inherits from a single-parent class. Here
is one child class and one parent class.
Parent Class
Child Class
Python Single Inheritance
Example
Let’s create one parent class called Vehicle and one child class called Car to
implement single inheritance.
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Python MMN
# Base class
class Vehicle:
def Vehicle_info(self):
print('Inside Vehicle class')
# Child class
class Car(Vehicle):
def car_info(self):
print('Inside Car class')
# Create object of Car
car = Car()
# access Vehicle's info using car object
car.Vehicle_info()
car.car_info()
Output
Inside Vehicle class
Inside Car class
Multiple Inheritance
In multiple inheritance, one child class can inherit from multiple parent
classes. So here is one child class and multiple parent classes.
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Python MMN
Example
# Parent class 1
class Person:
def person_info(self, name, age):
print('Inside Person class')
print('Name:', name, 'Age:', age)
# Parent class 2
class Company:
def company_info(self, company_name, location):
print('Inside Company class')
print('Name:', company_name, 'location:', location)
# Child class
class Employee(Person, Company):
def Employee_info(self, salary, skill):
print('Inside Employee class')
print('Salary:', salary, 'Skill:', skill)
# Create object of Employee
emp = Employee()
# access data
emp.person_info('Jessa', 28)
emp.company_info('Google', 'Atlanta')
emp.Employee_info(12000, 'Machine Learning')
Output
Inside Person class
Name: Jessa Age: 28
Inside Company class
Name: Google location: Atlanta
Inside Employee class
Salary: 12000 Skill: Machine Learning
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Python MMN
In the above example, we created two parent
classes Person and Company respectively. Then we create one child
called Employee which inherits from Person and Company classes.
Multilevel inheritance
In multilevel inheritance, a class inherits from a child class or derived class.
Suppose three classes A, B, C. A is the superclass, B is the child class of A, C is the
child class of B.
In other words, we can say a chain of classes is called multilevel
inheritance.
Example
# Base class
class Vehicle:
def Vehicle_info(self):
print('Inside Vehicle class')
# Child class
class Car(Vehicle):
def car_info(self):
print('Inside Car class')
# Child class
class SportsCar(Car):
def sports_car_info(self):
print('Inside SportsCar class')
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# Create object of SportsCar
s_car = SportsCar()
# access Vehicle's and Car info using SportsCar object
s_car.Vehicle_info()
s_car.car_info()
s_car.sports_car_info()
Output
Inside Vehicle class
Inside Car class
Inside SportsCar class
In the above example, we can see there are three classes
named Vehicle, Car, SportsCar.
Vehicle is the superclass, Car is a child of Vehicle, SportsCar is a child of Car.
So we can see the chaining of classes.
Hierarchical Inheritance
In Hierarchical inheritance, more than one child class is derived from a
single parent class. In other words, we can say one parent class and multiple child
classes.
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Example
Let’s create ‘Vehicle’ as a parent class and two child class ‘Car’ and ‘Truck’ as a
parent class.
class Vehicle:
def info(self):
print("This is Vehicle")
class Car(Vehicle):
def car_info(self, name):
print("Car name is:", name)
class Truck(Vehicle):
def truck_info(self, name):
print("Truck name is:", name)
obj1 = Car()
[Link]()
obj1.car_info('BMW')
obj2 = Truck()
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obj2.truck_info('Ford')
Output
This is Vehicle
Car name is: BMW
This is Vehicle
Truck name is: Ford
Hybrid Inheritance
When inheritance is consists of multiple types or a combination of different
inheritance is called hybrid inheritance.
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Python MMN
Example
class Vehicle:
def vehicle_info(self):
print("Inside Vehicle class")
class Car(Vehicle):
def car_info(self):
print("Inside Car class")
class Truck(Vehicle):
def truck_info(self):
print("Inside Truck class")
# Sports Car can inherits properties of Vehicle and Car
class SportsCar(Car, Vehicle):
def sports_car_info(self):
print("Inside SportsCar class")
# create object
s_car = SportsCar()
s_car.vehicle_info()
s_car.car_info()
s_car.sports_car_info()
Note: In the above example, hierarchical and multiple inheritance exists. Here
we created, parent class Vehicle and two child classes named Car and Truck this is
hierarchical inheritance.
Another is SportsCar inherit from two parent classes named Car and Vehicle.
This is multiple inheritances.
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