how does inheritance relate to abstraction

6 hours ago 4

Inheritance and abstraction are closely related concepts in object-oriented programming, but they serve different purposes and complement each other.

Abstraction is the concept of hiding unnecessary details and showing only the essential features of an object or class. It focuses on defining a general idea or template that represents a group of related objects without specifying all the details. For example, a Vehicle class might abstract the common features of all vehicles, like having wheels and an engine, without specifying the exact type of vehicle

Inheritance is a mechanism to realize abstraction in code by allowing a new class (derived class) to inherit properties and behaviors from an existing class (base class). The derived class can add more specific details or override inherited behaviors. For instance, a Car class can inherit from the abstract Vehicle class and specify details unique to cars

A base class can be considered an abstraction of all its derived classes because it defines generalized features that the derived classes share. Conversely, a derived class can be seen as an abstraction of its base class by specializing or extending the base class's features

Abstract classes are a key tool in combining inheritance and abstraction. An abstract class cannot be instantiated directly but provides a blueprint for other classes to inherit from. This enforces abstraction by preventing the creation of generic objects while allowing derived classes to implement specific details. For example, an abstract class Cat might define common behaviors for all cats, but only subclasses like HouseCat or Tiger can be instantiated

In summary, abstraction defines what a class should represent, while inheritance defines how that abstraction is implemented and extended in subclasses. Inheritance enables code reuse and polymorphism by sharing behavior defined in abstract or base classes