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Polymorphism

polymorphism

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Karl musi
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3 views4 pages

Polymorphism

polymorphism

Uploaded by

Karl musi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Polymorphism

Polymorphism means "many forms", and it occurs when we have many classes that are related to
each other by inheritance.

Like we specified in the previous chapter; Inheritance lets us inherit attributes and methods from
another class. Polymorphism uses those methods to perform different tasks. This allows us to
perform a single action in different ways.

For example, think of a base class called Animal that has a method called animalSound().
Derived classes of Animals could be Pigs, Cats, Dogs, Birds - And they also have their own
implementation of an animal sound (the pig oinks, and the cat meows, etc.):

Example

// Base class
class Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The animal makes a sound \n" ;
}
};

// Derived class
class Pig : public Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The pig says: wee wee \n" ;
}
};

// Derived class
class Dog : public Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The dog says: bow wow \n" ;
}
};

Remember from the Inheritance chapter that we use the : symbol to inherit from a class.

Now we can create Pig and Dog objects and override the animalSound() method:
Example

// Base class
class Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The animal makes a sound \n" ;
}
};

// Derived class
class Pig : public Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The pig says: wee wee \n" ;
}
};

// Derived class
class Dog : public Animal {
public:
void animalSound() {
cout << "The dog says: bow wow \n" ;
}
};

int main() {
Animal myAnimal;
Pig myPig;
Dog myDog;

myAnimal.animalSound();
myPig.animalSound();
myDog.animalSound();
return 0;
}
Constructors
A constructor in C++ is a special method that is automatically called when an object of a class is
created.

To create a constructor, use the same name as the class, followed by parentheses ():

Example

class MyClass { // The class


public: // Access specifier
MyClass() { // Constructor
cout << "Hello World!";
}
};

int main() {
MyClass myObj; // Create an object of MyClass (this will call the constructor)
return 0;
}

Constructor Parameters
Constructors can also take parameters (just like regular functions), which can be useful for
setting initial values for attributes.

The following class have brand, model and year attributes, and a constructor with different
parameters. Inside the constructor we set the attributes equal to the constructor parameters
(brand=x, etc). When we call the constructor (by creating an object of the class), we pass
parameters to the constructor, which will set the value of the corresponding attributes to the
same:

Example

class Car { // The class


public: // Access specifier
string brand; // Attribute
string model; // Attribute
int year; // Attribute
Car(string x, string y, int z) { // Constructor with parameters
brand = x;
model = y;
year = z;
}
};

int main() {
// Create Car objects and call the constructor with different values
Car carObj1("BMW", "X5", 1999);
Car carObj2("Ford", "Mustang", 1969);

// Print values
cout << carObj1.brand << " " << carObj1.model << " " << carObj1.year << "\n";
cout << carObj2.brand << " " << carObj2.model << " " << carObj2.year << "\n";
return 0;
}

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