Python Inheritance

Python Inheritance

If we have a basic Student class which we want to modify to create a University Student object, we can create a new class that incorporates the methods and variables in the Student class but adds new features such as the name of the University. 

Student class is referred o as the parent class while University Student class is called the child class. We say that UniversityClass is inheriting from Student class.

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a set of diagrams that allows you to represent many types of relationship. One type of UML diagram is called a Class Diagram and is used to represent relationships between classes. An example is shown:

To specify the visibility of a class method use the following prefixes:

+	Public
-	Private
#	Protected
~	Package

Different types of arrows have the following meanings:

The one in the example diagram above means that UniversityStudent inherits from Student. All non-private methods in Student can be directly accessed in UniversityStudent. If the method in UniversityStudent has the same name as that in Student, we call this situation, method overriding.