In this tutorial you will learn why java does not support multiple inheritance. It is a very popular and frequently asked java interview question.
What is Multiple Inheritance?
When a class inherits two or more classes then this scenario is called as multiple inheritance.
Also Read: Why Java Does Not Support Pointers?
Why Java Does Not Support Multiple Inheritance?
Lets consider a situation to understand this. There are three classes A, B and C. A and B class contains a method display(). Class C inherits these two classes. In this case class C will be confused that which display() to inherit because both A and B contains display() method. To remove this kind of ambiguity java doesn’t support multiple inheritance.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |
class A { void display(){ //some statements } } class B { void display(){ //some statements } } class C extends A, B{ //inherit A's display() or B's display()? } |
How to Achieve Multiple Inheritance?
We can achieve multiple inheritance in java using interfaces. Consider below example.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 |
interface A { public void display(); } interface B { public void display(); } class C implements A, B { public void display(){ //some statements } } |
There is no ambiguity in above case because interface do not provides method body and the class that implements the interface has to provide method body. Class C will provide its own implementation of method display().
