Mapping Relationships in Java: Modeling Is-a Relationships Using Inheritance

Skillsoft issued completion badges are earned based on viewing the percentage required or receiving a passing score when assessment is required. Java is an object-oriented programming language, meaning Java programs and frameworks are built on the pillars of inheritance and runtime polymorphism. Inheritance is used to model is-a relationships between classes; such relationships could include either behavior and state or just behavior alone. Use this course to appreciate how classes can be used to model an entity's state and behavior and inheritance to model is-a relationships between two classes. Create various objects of the universal base class Java.lang.Object and of other built-in and custom classes. Use the instanceof operator and the getClass method. Create an inheritance hierarchy out of custom classes. Then, practice using up-casting and down-casting on your objects to explore the relationship between variable types, object types, and inheritance. By the time you're finished, you'll clearly understand how inheritance is a powerful mechanism for code re-use and modeling is-a relationships in Java.