Inheritance in Java – Quick Overview

Inheritance is one of the four pillars of OOPS. Let’s have a look at it through a mind map.

Java OOP Inheritance Mind Map
Java OOP Inheritance Mind Map

Points to be noted about Inheritance in Java

  • In inheritance, there is a parent-child relationship. i.e. a sub-class extends a super-class.
  • extends” and “implements” are the two keywords to be used to implement inheritance in Java.
  • Every class in Java extends the Object superclass.
  • A class cannot extend itself.
  • To restrict the inheritance of methods and member variables, they need to be declared private in the super-class.
  • Constructors and initializers both SIB(Static initialization block) & IIB(Instance initialization block) are not inherited by the subclass but they get executed during the instantiation of the subclass.
  • When both super-class and sub-class have a field with the same name, the field in the super-class gets hidden but can be accessed using the super keyword.
  • Static method members and variables are also inherited in the sub-class.

Order of execution of Constructor, SIB & IIB in Java Inheritance

The order of execution of inherited classes in Java is the following order:

  1. Static initializer block of each class
  2. Instance initializer block followed by constructor from parent to child

Check out our coding video for the same.

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