👨‍👧 Inheritance

📖 What Is Inheritance?

Inheritance means a new class (called the child or subclass) can inherit all the attributes and methods from an existing class (called the parent or superclass). The child gets everything the parent has, and can also add new features or change existing ones.

Analogy: In Minecraft, a Zombie, Skeleton, and Creeper are all different, but they share common features: they all have health, they all move, they all take damage. Instead of writing this code three times, you write it once in a parent class called Mob, and each specific mob inherits it.

🐍 Inheritance in Python

🐍 Mob parent class with Zombie and Skeleton children

# PARENT class - shared features
class Mob:
    def __init__(self, name, health):
        self.name = name
        self.health = health

    def take_damage(self, amount):
        self.health = self.health - amount
        print(f"  {self.name} takes {amount} DMG! HP: {self.health}")

    def move(self):
        print(f"  {self.name} is moving...")

# CHILD class - inherits from Mob, adds melee attack
class Zombie(Mob):
    def __init__(self, name, health, damage):
        super().__init__(name, health)  # Call parent's __init__
        self.damage = damage            # New attribute

    def attack_melee(self):             # New method
        print(f"  {self.name} punches for {self.damage} DMG!")

# CHILD class - inherits from Mob, adds ranged attack
class Skeleton(Mob):
    def __init__(self, name, health, arrow_damage):
        super().__init__(name, health)
        self.arrow_damage = arrow_damage

    def shoot_arrow(self):
        print(f"  {self.name} shoots an arrow for {self.arrow_damage} DMG!")

z = Zombie("Zombie", 20, 3)
s = Skeleton("Skeleton", 20, 4)

print("Both inherit move() and take_damage() from Mob:")
z.move()             # Inherited from Mob
s.move()             # Inherited from Mob
z.take_damage(5)     # Inherited from Mob
print()
print("Each has its OWN special method:")
z.attack_melee()     # Only Zombie has this
s.shoot_arrow()      # Only Skeleton has this

🎯 Key Points

Inheritance = a child class gets all attributes and methods from a parent class. super().__init__() calls the parent's constructor. The child can add new features and override (replace) inherited ones. This avoids writing the same code multiple times.