What\'s the Difference: Inheritance vs. Polymorphism in Object-Oriented Programming?

Understanding the Distinction: Inheritance vs. Polymorphism

In the realm of programming, inheritance and polymorphism often intertwine, leading to some confusion among developers. While both concepts involve the concept of classes and objects, they manifest in distinct ways.

Inheritance: The Art of Inheritance

Imagine you have a class called Person with attributes such as name and age. If you wish to create a specific type of person, such as a Student, you can make inheritance work its magic. The Student class can inherit all the attributes and methods of the Person class, adding its own unique characteristics, like enrollment status and major. Inheritance enables you to create a hierarchy of classes, where child classes inherit the properties and behaviors of their parent classes.

Polymorphism: Dynamic Method Calling

Polymorphism, on the other hand, empowers objects to respond to method calls in different ways based on their runtime type. Consider a Person class with a read() method for displaying information. A Student class extends Person, overriding the read() method to specifically display student details.

When you assign an instance of the Student class to a reference variable of type Person, the polymorphism mechanism kicks in. The runtime cleverly recognizes that the actual object is a Student, and invokes the read() method defined in the Student class. This happens seamlessly, allowing you to call methods on different types of objects without worrying about their specific implementations.

In essence, inheritance empowers classes to inherit attributes and behaviors from existing classes, while polymorphism ensures that objects respond appropriately to method calls based on their actual type. Both inheritance and polymorphism are fundamental pillars of object-oriented programming, enabling developers to create flexible and extensible applications.

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