Visual Modeling with Rational Rose 2002 and UML

Inheritance

Inheritance defines a relationship among classes where one class shares the structure and/or behavior of one or more classes. A hierarchy of abstractions is created in which a subclass inherits from one or more superclasses. Inheritance is also called an “is-a” or “kind-of” hierarchy. A subclass will inherit all attributes, operations, and relationships defined in any of its superclasses. Thus, attributes and operations are defined at the highest level in the hierarchy at which they are applicable, which allows all lower classes in the hierarchy to inherit them. Subclasses may be augmented with additional attributes and operations that apply only to that level of the hierarchy. A subclass may supply its own implementation of an operation. ...