https://realpython.com/inheritance-composition-python/

Table of Contents

• An Overview of Inheritance in Python

In this article, you’ll explore inheritance and composition in Python. Inheritance and composition are two important concepts in object oriented programming that model the relationship between two classes. They are the building blocks of object oriented design, and they help programmers to write reusable code.

By the end of this article, you’ll know how to:

• Use inheritance in Python
• Model class hierarchies using inheritance
• Use multiple inheritance in Python and understand its drawbacks
• Use composition to create complex objects
• Reuse existing code by applying composition
• Change application behavior at run-time through composition

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What Are Inheritance and Composition?

Inheritance and composition are two major concepts in object oriented programming that model the relationship between two classes. They drive the design of an application and determine how the application should evolve as new features are added or requirements change.

Both of them enable code reuse, but they do it in different ways.

What’s Inheritance?

Inheritance models what is called an is a relationship. This means that when you have a Derived class that inherits from a Base class, you created a relationship where Derived is a specialized version of Base.

Inheritance is represented using the Unified Modeling Language or UML in the following way: