CS: Objects in Python

Inheritance

Parent & Child Classes

Learning Objectives - Parents &

Children

Define the terms inheritance, parent class, and child class

Explain the relationship between the parent class and

child class

Explain the role of the super() keyword

Create a child class from a given parent class

Use isinstance to determine an object’s parent class

Use issubclass to determine a class’s parent class

What is Inheritance?

Defining Inheritance
Imagine you want to create two Python classes, Person and Superhero.
These respective classes might look something like this:

No_Inheritance

There are some similarities between the Person class and the Superhero
class. If the Person class already exists, it would be helpful to “borrow”
from the Person class so you only have to create the new attributes and
methods for theSuperhero class. This situation describes inheritance — one
class copies the attributes and methods from another class.

Inheritance Syntax
In the IDE on the left, the Person class is already defined. To create the
Superhero class that inherits from the Person class, add the following code
at the end of the program. Notice how Superhero takes Person as a
parameter. This is how you indicate to Python that the Superhero class
inherits from the Person class. You can also say that the Person class is the
parent and the Superhero class is the child.
 class Superhero(Person):
pass

hero = Superhero("Jessica Jones", 29, "private investigator")

print(hero.name)
print(hero.occupation)

The Superhero class can access the attributes of the Person class because
Superheor inherits from Person.

challenge

Try this variation:

Print the age attribute for the hero object.
Call the say_hello method with the hero object.
Solution

print(hero.age)
hero.say_hello()

Visualizing Inheritance
Python has a function called help which can aid you in understanding
what is being inherited. Add the following line of code after instantiating
hero as an instance of the Superhero class.

hero = Superhero("Jessica Jones", 29, "private investigator")

print(help(Superhero))
print(hero.name)
print(hero.occupation)

You should see a visual representation of the Superhero class. The first
section is Method resolution order. This shows the steps Python takes with
inheritance. Python first starts with the Superhero class. So when you say
print(hero.name), Python will look to the Superhero class for the attribute
name. This does not exist. So Python moves to the next step, which is the
Person class. Since the Person class has a name attribute, Python can stop
here. Notice too that the say_name and say_age methods are also inherited.

challenge

Try this variation:

Print the result of using the help function on the Person class -
print(help(Person))
Why does the Person class inherit from builtins.object class?
In Python, all classes inherit from the objects class. It is not
necessary to write class Person(object): when declaring a class.
Python will perform the inheritance automatically.
Super

The super() Keyword

Another way to call a method from the parent class (sometimes called the
super class), is to use the super() keyword. Alter the end of the program to
look like the following code.

class Superhero(Person):
def say_hello(self):
super().say_hello()

hero = Superhero("Wonder Woman", 27, "intelligence officer")

hero.say_hello()

The Superhero class has a method called say_hello. The super() keyword
tells Python to go to the parent class; the .say_hello() tells Python to call
this method. So super().say_hello() is calling say_hello from the Person
class.
 challenge

Try this variation:

Declare the function say_age for the Superhero class using
inheritance.
Solution

class Superhero(Person):
def say_hello(self):
super().say_hello()

def say_age(self):
super().say_age()

hero = Superhero("Wonder Woman", 27, "intelligence officer")

hero.say_hello()
hero.say_age()

super() and __init__

If the super() keyword is used to call methods from the parent class, how
come super() was not used with the __init__ method? In fact, the __init__
was never called in the Superhero class. A child class will automatically
inherit the __init__ method if it is not defined. __init__ is called when an
object is instantiated, and super() does not need to be used.

However, it is possible to create an __init__ method for the Superhero class

using super(). Later on, you will see the benefits of doing this. Change the
code for Superhero to look like the code below. You should still be able to
print the attributes just as before.
 class Superhero(Person):
def __init__(self, name, age, occupation):
super().__init__(name, age, occupation)

hero = Superhero("Batman", 32, "CEO")

print(hero.name)

The lack of self in super().__init__

When calling super().__init__ the keyword self was not used. That is
because you were not defining the init method of the parent class, you
were calling it. Just like any other method in Python, self is the first
parameter when you declare a method, but it is not used when call the
method. This is the first time that we are explicitly called the init method.
Usually this happens automatically when an object is instantiated.

challenge

Try this variation:

Using the super() keyword, create the method say_two_things for
the Superhero class. This method should print the name and age of
the hero object.
Solution

class Superhero(Person):
def say_two_things(self):
super().say_hello()
super().say_age()

hero = Superhero("Rorschach", 34, "conspiracy theorist")

hero.say_two_things()
Inheritance Hierarchy

Inheritance Hierarchy
You have seen how the Superhero class becomes the child of the Person class
though inheritance. The relationship between these two classes is called
inheritance (or class) hierarchy. Python has some built-in functions to help
you determine the hierarchy of classes.

The first function is isinstance. This function takes an object and a class
name. It returns True if the object is an instance of the class. Look at the
code on the left. ClassA is the parent of ClassB, and ClassC is the parent of
ClassD. The isinstance function can be used to test these relationships. Add
the following code to the program.

print(isinstance(object_b, ClassA))
print(isinstance(object_d, ClassC))

challenge

Try this variation:

print(isinstance(object_b, ClassC))
print(isinstance(object_d, ClassA))
print(isinstance(object_a, ClassA))

Is a Subclass?
Another function that can be used to determine inheritance hierarchy is
issubclass. This function takes a class and a class name. It returns true if
the class is a subclass (or child) of the class name. This is very similar to
isinstance, but the difference is important. issubclass checks to see if a
class (not an object) is the child of another class. Add the following code to
the program.
print(issubclass(ClassB, ClassA))
print(issubclass(ClassD, ClassC))

challenge

Try this variation:

print(issubclass(ClassD, ClassA))
print(issubclass(ClassA, ClassB))
print(issubclass(object_b, ClassA))
What went wrong?
The last print statement produced an error because issubclass
requires two classes as parameters. object_b is an instance of a
class, not a class itself.