Inheritance and Its Types

Inheritance allows a new class (called a child or derived class) to reuse the attributes and methods of an existing class (called a parent or base class), while also adding or overriding functionality of its own.

Basic Inheritance

class Person:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

    def introduce(self):
        print(f"I'm {self.name}")

class Student(Person):
    def __init__(self, name, course):
        super().__init__(name)
        self.course = course

s = Student("Abhay", "Data Science")
s.introduce()   # inherited from Person

The super().__init__(name) call lets the child class reuse the parent class's constructor logic instead of duplicating it.

Types of Inheritance

• Single Inheritance - a child class inherits from exactly one parent class
• Multiple Inheritance - a child class inherits from more than one parent class simultaneously
• Multilevel Inheritance - a class inherits from a child class, which itself inherited from another parent, forming a chain
• Hierarchical Inheritance - multiple child classes all inherit from the same single parent class

# Multiple Inheritance example
class Swimmer:
    def swim(self):
        print("Swimming")

class Runner:
    def run(self):
        print("Running")

class Triathlete(Swimmer, Runner):
    pass

t = Triathlete()
t.swim()
t.run()

Coming Up Next

Next, you'll dig deeper into Method Resolution Order - how Python decides which method to call when multiple inherited classes define one with the same name.