Chapter 9

Object-Oriented Programming:
Inheritance
Java™ How to Program, 9/e

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9.1  Introduction
 Inheritance
 A form of software reuse in which a new class is created by
absorbing an existing class’s members and embellishing them
with new or modified capabilities.
 Benefits
 Can save time during program development by basing new
classes on existing proven and debugged high-quality software.
 Increases the likelihood that a system will be implemented and
maintained effectively.

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9.1  Introduction (Cont.)
 When creating a class, rather than declaring completely new
members, you can designate that the new class should
inherit the members of an existing class.
 Existing class is the superclass
 New class is the subclass
 Each subclass can be a superclass of future subclasses.
 A subclass can add its own fields and methods.
 A subclass is more specific than its superclass and
represents a more specialized group of objects.
 The subclass exhibits the behaviors of its superclass and can
add behaviors that are specific to the subclass.
 This is why inheritance is sometimes referred to as specialization.

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9.1  Introduction (Cont.)
 The direct superclass is the superclass from which the
subclass explicitly inherits.
 An indirect superclass is any class above the direct

superclass in the class hierarchy.

 The Java class hierarchy begins with class Object (in

package java.lang)
 Every class in Java directly or indirectly extends (or “inherits
from”) Object.
 Java supports only single inheritance, in which each
class is derived from exactly one direct superclass.

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9.1  Introduction (Cont.)
 We distinguish between the is-a relationship and the
has-a relationship
 Is-a represents inheritance
 In an is-a relationship, an object of a subclass can also be
treated as an object of its superclass
 Has-a represents composition
 In a has-a relationship, an object contains as members
references to other objects

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9.2  Superclasses and Subclasses
 Figure 9.1 lists several simple examples of superclasses
and subclasses
 Superclasses tend to be “more general” and subclasses “more
specific.”
 Because every subclass object is an object of its
superclass, and one superclass can have many
subclasses, the set of objects represented by a
superclass is typically larger than the set of objects
represented by any of its subclasses.

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9.2  Superclasses and Subclasses
(Cont.)
 A superclass exists in a hierarchical relationship with its
subclasses.
 Fig. 9.2 shows a sample university community class hierarchy
 Also called an inheritance hierarchy.
 Each arrow in the hierarchy represents an is-a relationship.
 Follow the arrows upward in the class hierarchy
 an Employee is a CommunityMember”
 “a Teacher is a Faculty member.”
 CommunityMember is the direct superclass of Employee,
Student and Alumnus and is an indirect superclass of all the
other classes in the diagram.
 Starting from the bottom, you can follow the arrows and apply
the is-a relationship up to the topmost superclass.

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9.2  Superclasses and Subclasses
(Cont.)
 Fig. 9.3 shows a Shape inheritance hierarchy.
 Van follow the arrows from the bottom of the diagram

to the topmost superclass in this class hierarchy to

identify several is-a relationships.
 A Triangle is a TwoDimensionalShape and is a
Shape
 ASphere is a ThreeDimensionalShape and is a
Shape.

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Multiple Inheritance in Java
 Multiple inheritance: the ability to extend more
than one classes
 Multiple inheritance ...
◦ Is difficult to implement efficiently
◦ Can lead to ambiguity: if two parents implement
the same method, which to use?
◦ Therefore, Java does not allow a class to extend
more than one class
◦ However, interfaces (will be discussed in future)
can solve the problem of multiple inheritance

Chapter 3: Inheritance and Class

Hierarchies 14
 Problem with Multiple Inheritance
 In the following diagram, there is ambiguity in
StudentWorker class
 The inheritance relationship is shown as a hollow arrow
 Which of the ‘name’ field value should be inherited in
StudentWorker… Student’s or Employee’s

Desired,
but illegal,
situation

15
9.2  Superclasses and Subclasses
(Cont.)
 Not every class relationship is an inheritance
relationship.
 Has-a relationship
 Create classes by composition of existing classes.
 Example: Given the classes Employee, BirthDate and
TelephoneNumber, it’s improper to say that an Employee
is a BirthDate or that an Employee is a
TelephoneNumber.
 However, an Employee has a BirthDate, and an
Employee has a TelephoneNumber.

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9.2  Superclasses and Subclasses
(Cont.)
 Objects of all classes that extend a common superclass
can be treated as objects of that superclass.
 Commonality expressed in the members of the superclass.
 Inheritance issue
 A subclass can inherit methods that it does not need or should
not have.
 Even when a superclass method is appropriate for a subclass,
that subclass often needs a customized version of the method.
 The subclass can override (redefine) the superclass method
with an appropriate implementation.

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9.3  protected Members
 A class’s public members are accessible wherever the
program has a reference to an object of that class or one of
its subclasses.
 A class’s private members are accessible only within the
class itself.
 protected access is an intermediate level of access
between public and private.
 A superclass’s protected members can be accessed by members
of that superclass, by members of its subclasses and by members of
other classes in the same package
 protected members also have package access.
 All public and protected superclass members retain their
original access modifier when they become members of the subclass.

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9.3  protected Members (Cont.)
 A superclass’s private members are hidden in its
subclasses
 They can be accessed only through the public or protected
methods inherited from the superclass
 Subclass methods can refer to public and protected
members inherited from the superclass simply by using the
member names.
 When a subclass method overrides an inherited superclass
method, the superclass method can be accessed from the
subclass by preceding the superclass method name with
keyword super and a dot (.) separator.

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9.4  Relationship between
Superclasses and Subclasses
 Inheritance hierarchy containing types of employees in
a company’s payroll application
 Commission employees are paid a percentage of their

sales
 Base-salaried commission employees receive a base

salary plus a percentage of their sales.

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9.4.1 Creating and Using a
CommissionEmployee Class
 Class CommissionEmployee (Fig. 9.4) extends
class Object (from package java.lang).
 CommissionEmployee inherits Object’s methods.
 If you don’t explicitly specify which class a new class extends,
the class extends Object implicitly.

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9.4.1 Creating and Using a
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 Constructors are not inherited.
 The first task of a subclass constructor is to call its

direct superclass’s constructor explicitly or implicitly

 Ensures that the instance variables inherited from the
superclass are initialized properly.
 If the code does not include an explicit call to the
superclass constructor, Java implicitly calls the
superclass’s default or no-argument constructor.
 A class’s default constructor calls the superclass’s

default or no-argument constructor.

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9.4.1 Creating and Using a
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 toString is one of the methods that every class
inherits directly or indirectly from class Object.
 Returns a String representing an object.
 Called implicitly whenever an object must be converted to a
String representation.
 Class Object’s toString method returns a
String that includes the name of the object’s class.
 This is primarily a placeholder that can be overridden by a
subclass to specify an appropriate String representation.

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9.4.1 Creating and Using a
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 To override a superclass method, a subclass must
declare a method with the same signature as the
superclass method
 @Override annotation
 Indicates that a method should override a superclass method
with the same signature.
 If it does not, a compilation error occurs.

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9.4.2 Creating and Using a BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Class
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee (Fig. 9.6)
contains a first name, last name, social security
number, gross sales amount, commission rate and base
salary.
 All but the base salary are in common with class
CommissionEmployee.
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s
public services include a constructor, and methods
earnings, toString and get and set for each
instance variable
 Most of these are in common with class
CommissionEmployee.
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9.4.2 Creating and Using a BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee does not
specify “extends Object”
 Implicitly extends Object.
 BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s constructor
invokes class Object’s default constructor implicitly.

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9.4.2 Creating and Using a BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 Much of BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s code is
similar, or identical, to that of CommissionEmployee.
 private instance variables firstName and lastName
and methods setFirstName, getFirstName,
setLastName and getLastName are identical.
 Both classes also contain corresponding get and set methods.
 The constructors are almost identical
 BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s constructor also sets the
base-Salary.
 The toString methods are nearly identical
 BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s toString also outputs
instance variable baseSalary

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9.4.2 Creating and Using a BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Class (Cont.)
 We literally copied CommissionEmployee’s code,
pasted it into BasePlusCommissionEmployee,
then modified the new class to include a base salary
and methods that manipulate the base salary.
 This “copy-and-paste” approach is often error prone and time
consuming.
 It spreads copies of the same code throughout a system,
creating a code-maintenance nightmare.

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9.4.3 Creating a CommissionEmployee–
BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy

 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee class extends

class CommissionEmployee
 A BasePlusCommissionEmployee object is a
CommissionEmployee
 Inheritance passes on class CommissionEmployee’s capabilities.
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee also has
instance variable baseSalary.
 Subclass BasePlusCommissionEmployee inherits
CommissionEmployee’s instance variables and methods
 Only the superclass’s public and protected members are
directly accessible in the subclass.

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9.4.3 Creating a CommissionEmployee–
BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
(Cont.)
 Each subclass constructor must implicitly or explicitly call
its superclass constructor to initialize the instance variables
inherited from the superclass.
 Superclass constructor call syntax—keyword super, followed by a
set of parentheses containing the superclass constructor arguments.
 Must be the first statement in the subclass constructor’s body.
 If the subclass constructor did not invoke the superclass’s
constructor explicitly, Java would attempt to invoke the
superclass’s no-argument or default constructor.
 Class CommissionEmployee does not have such a constructor,
so the compiler would issue an error.
 You can explicitly use super() to call the superclass’s no-
argument or default constructor, but this is rarely done.
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9.4.3 Creating a CommissionEmployee–
BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
(Cont.)

 Compilation errors occur when the subclass attempts to

access the superclass’s private instance variables.
 These lines could have used appropriate get methods to

retrieve the values of the superclass’s instance

variables.

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9.4.4 CommissionEmployee–
BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance
Hierarchy Using protected Instance Variables
 To enable a subclass to directly access superclass instance
variables, we can declare those members as protected in
the superclass.
 New CommissionEmployee class modified only lines
6–10 of Fig. 9.4 as follows:
protected String firstName;
protected String lastName;
protected String socialSecurityNumber;
protected double grossSales;
protected double commissionRate;
 With protected instance variables, the subclass gets
access to the instance variables, but classes that are not
subclasses and classes that are not in the same package
cannot access these variables directly.
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9.4.4 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using protected Instance Variables (Cont.)
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee (Fig. 9.9) extends
the new version of class CommissionEmployee with
protected instance variables.
 These variables are now protected members of
BasePlusCommissionEmployee.
 If another class extends this version of class
BasePlusCommissionEmployee, the new subclass also
can access the protected members.
 The source code in Fig. 9.9 (51 lines) is considerably shorter than
that in Fig. 9.6 (128 lines)
 Most of the functionality is now inherited from
CommissionEmployee
 There is now only one copy of the functionality.
 Code is easier to maintain, modify and debug—the code related to a
commission employee exists only in class CommissionEmployee.

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9.4.4 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using protected Instance Variables (Cont.)
 Inheriting protected instance variables slightly

increases performance, because we can directly access

the variables in the subclass without incurring the
overhead of a set or get method call.
 In most cases, it’s better to use private instance

variables to encourage proper software engineering,

and leave code optimization issues to the compiler.
 Code will be easier to maintain, modify and debug.

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9.4.4 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using protected Instance Variables (Cont.)
 Using protected instance variables creates several

potential problems.
 The subclass object can set an inherited variable’s

value directly without using a set method.

 A subclass object can assign an invalid value to the variable
 A class’s protected members are visible to all
classes in the same package as the class containing the
protected members—this is not always desirable.

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9.4.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using private Instance Variables
 Hierarchy reengineered using good software

engineering practices.
 Class CommissionEmployee declares instance

variables firstName, lastName,

socialSecurityNumber, grossSales and
commissionRate as private and provides
public methods for manipulating these values.

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9.4.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using private Instance Variables (Cont.)
 CommissionEmployee methods earnings and
toString use the class’s get methods to obtain the values
of its instance variables.
 If we decide to change the internal representation of the data (e.g.,
variable names) only the bodies of the get and set methods that
directly manipulate the instance variables will need to change.
 These changes occur solely within the superclass-—no changes to
the subclass are needed.
 Localizing the effects of changes like this is a good software
engineering practice.
 Subclass BasePlusCommissionEmployee inherits
Commission-Employee’s non-private methods and
can access the private superclass members via those
methods.

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9.4.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using private Instance Variables (Cont.)
 Class BasePlusCommissionEmployee

(Fig. 9.11) has several changes that distinguish it from

Fig. 9.9.
 Methods earnings and toString each invoke

their superclass versions and do not access instance

variables directly.

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9.4.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using private Instance Variables (Cont.)
 Method earnings overrides class the superclass’s
earnings method.
 The new version calls CommissionEmployee’s
earnings method with super.earnings().
 Obtains the earnings based on commission alone
 Placing the keyword super and a dot (.) separator
before the superclass method name invokes the
superclass version of an overridden method.
 Good software engineering practice
 If a method performs all or some of the actions needed by
another method, call that method rather than duplicate its code.

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9.4.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlus-
CommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy
Using private Instance Variables (Cont.)
 BasePlusCommissionEmployee’s toString

method overrides class CommissionEmployee’s

toString method.
 The new version creates part of the String

representation by calling CommissionEmployee’s

toString method with the expression
super.toString().

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9.5  Constructors in Subclasses
 Instantiating a subclass object begins a chain of constructor
calls
 The subclass constructor, before performing its own tasks, invokes
its direct superclass’s constructor
 If the superclass is derived from another class, the
superclass constructor invokes the constructor of the next
class up the hierarchy, and so on.
 The last constructor called in the chain is always class
Object’s constructor.
 Original subclass constructor’s body finishes executing last.
 Each superclass’s constructor manipulates the superclass
instance variables that the subclass object inherits.

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9.6  Software Engineering with
Inheritance
 When you extend a class, the new class inherits the
superclass’s members—though the private
superclass members are hidden in the new class.
 You can customize the new class to meet your needs by

including additional members and by overriding

superclass members.
 Doing this does not require the subclass programmer to change
(or even have access to) the superclass’s source code.
 Java simply requires access to the superclass’s .class file.

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9.7  Object Class
 All classes in Java inherit directly or indirectly from Object, so
its 11 methods are inherited by all other classes.
 Figure 9.12 summarizes Object’s methods.
 Every array has an overridden clone method that copies the
array.
 If the array stores references to objects, the objects are not copied—a
shallow copy is performed.

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9.8  (Optional) GUI and Graphics Case Study:
Displaying Text and Images Using Labels
 Labels are a convenient way of identifying GUI
components on the screen and keeping the user
informed about the current state of the program.
 A JLabel (from package javax.swing) can

display text, an image or both.

 The example in Fig. 9.13 demonstrates several

JLabel features, including a plain text label, an image

label and a label with both text and an image.

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9.8  (Optional) GUI and Graphics Case Study:
Displaying Text and Images Using Labels (Cont.)
 An ImageIcon represents an image that can be
displayed on a JLabel.
 The constructor for ImageIcon receives a String

that specifies the path to the image.

 ImageIcon can load images in GIF, JPEG and PNG

image formats.
 JLabel method setText changes the text the label

displays.

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9.8  (Optional) GUI and Graphics Case Study:
Displaying Text and Images Using Labels (Cont.)
 An overloaded version of method add that takes two
parameters allows you to specify the GUI component to add
to a JFrame and the location in which to add it.
 The first parameter is the component to attach.
 The second is the region in which it should be placed.
 Each JFrame has a layout to position GUI components.
 Default layout for a JFrame is BorderLayout.
 Five regions—NORTH (top), SOUTH (bottom), EAST (right side),
WEST (left side) and CENTER (constants in class BorderLayout)
 Each region is declared as a constant in class BorderLayout.
 When calling method add with one argument, the JFrame
places the component in the BorderLayout’s CENTER
automatically.

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