From an OOP point of view is there any difference between a derived class and an inherited class? Or is it simply terminology?
+4
A:
When using inheritance, the inherited class is called the base class, and the inheriting class is called the derived class.
HappyCoder
2010-01-16 11:10:17
Completely changing te text of your answer to mirror another user's answer is not considered good form here on SO.
anon
2010-01-16 11:23:01
@Neil: On the contrary. Editing your answer to make it the best possible answer is what SO is all about. Of course that plagiarizing is not nice, but I find the edit an improvement based on your answer, not a blatant copy, especially since your answer was C++ specific (there was no need to make it specific, but you did.)
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-16 11:31:00
@Vinko There was a need need to make it specific - different languages use different nomenclatures. For example, a Smalltalk programmer would talk about superclass and subclass rather than base and derived.
anon
2010-01-16 11:35:41
@Neil: Well then, if you think so you now have an opportunity to improve your answer and make it better than the answer based on your own.
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-16 11:40:34
BTW, given the question, I don't think there is a need to be language specific. The question is about inherited and derived and, while some languages might out front not use those terms at all, I doubt there is any language where the terms are used and represent different things. In case such language existed, that would be a worthy addition to an answer.
Vinko Vrsalovic
2010-01-16 11:42:15
I changed my answer because I realized I was wrong when I was googling a bit just to make sure I wrote a correct answer.
HappyCoder
2010-01-16 13:38:38
+3
A:
The term derived class is preferred C++ parlance for a class that inherits from another class, which in C++ parlance is called a base class. So in C++ the terms you ask about are identical.
anon
2010-01-16 11:15:21
+1
A:
Neil's answer confused me a bit, and so I checked some public sources.
Consider a Base Class and a Sub Class (SubClass extends BaseClass in Java terminology), than
- the Sub Class derives Base Class (Sub Class is a derived class of Base Class) and
- the Sub Class inherits from Base Class (Base Class is a/the inherited class of Sub Class)
So in my opinion both terms define the same relationship between to classes but from different perspectives.
Andreas_D
2010-01-16 11:29:25
A:
maybe interesting, if you override a method, in Delphi you write:
inherited; // so "inherited" is the base class
instead of
base.BaseImplementation(); // C#
Carsten
2010-01-16 11:45:07