Types of Inheritance in C++ | C++ Programming

Types of Inheritance

A class can inherit properties from one or more classes and from one or more levels.

On the basis of this concept, there are five types of inheritance.

1. Single Inheritance
2. Multiple Inheritance
3. Hierarchical Inheritance
4. Multilevel Inheritance
5. Hybrid Inheritance

Single Inheritance

In single inheritance, a class is derived from only one base class. The example and figure below show this inheritance.
Example

class A
{
 members of A
};
class B  :  public A
{
 members of B
};

Multiple Inheritance

In this inheritance, a class is derived from more than one base class. The example and figure below show this inheritance.
Implementation Skeleton:

class A
{
members of A
}; class B
{  members of B
};
class C  :
public A,
public B 
{
members of C
};

Hierarchical Inheritance

In this type, two or more classes inherit the properties of one base class. The example and figure below show this inheritance.
Implementation Skeleton:
class A
{
members of A
};
class B
{
members of B
};
class C  : 
public A,
public B 
{
members of C
};

Multilevel Inheritance

The mechanism of deriving a class from another derived class is known as multilevel inheritance. The process can be extended to an arbitrary number of levels. The example and figure below show this inheritance.
Implementation Skeleton:
class A
{
members of A
};
class B :
public A
{
members of B
};
class C  :
public B 
{
members of C
};

Hybrid Inheritance

This type of inheritance includes more than one type of inheritance mentioned previously. The example and figure below show this inheritance.
Example
class A
{
 members of A
};
class B :
public A
{
 members of B
};
class C  :
public A 
{
 members of C
};
class D :
public B, public C
{
 members of D
};