What are the different types of Inheritance?

 

In C#, you can implement inheritance using the : (colon) symbol to denote the inheritance relationship between classes. Here are the different types of inheritance that you can use in C#:

Single Inheritance: C# supports single inheritance, where a class can inherit from only one base class.

public class Parent
{
    public void Method1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Parent class");
    }
}

public class Child : Parent
{
    public void Method2()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Child class");
    }
}

 

Multiple Inheritance (through Interfaces): C# does not support multiple inheritance for classes, but it does support multiple inheritance through interfaces. Interfaces allow a class to inherit multiple method signatures without the actual implementation.

public interface IInterface1
{
    void Method1();
}

public interface IInterface2
{
    void Method2();
}

public class Child : IInterface1, IInterface2
{
    public void Method1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from IInterface1");
    }

    public void Method2()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from IInterface2");
    }
}

 

Multilevel Inheritance: C# supports multilevel inheritance, where a class can inherit from a base class, which, in turn, inherits from another base class.

public class Grandparent
{
    public void Method1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Grandparent class");
    }
}

public class Parent : Grandparent
{
    public void Method2()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Parent class");
    }
}

public class Child : Parent
{
    public void Method3()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Child class");
    }
}

 

Hierarchical Inheritance: C# also supports hierarchical inheritance, where multiple classes inherit from the same base class.

public class Parent
{
    public void Method1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Parent class");
    }
}

public class Child1 : Parent
{
    public void Method2()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Child1 class");
    }
}

public class Child2 : Parent
{
    public void Method3()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from Child2 class");
    }
}

 

Hybrid Inheritance (using Interfaces): You can use interfaces to simulate hybrid inheritance in C#.

public interface IInterface1
{
    void Method1();
}

public interface IInterface2
{
    void Method2();
}

public class Parent : IInterface1
{
    public void Method1()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from IInterface1");
    }
}

public class Child : Parent, IInterface2
{
    public void Method2()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Method from IInterface2");
    }
}

Remember that in C#, a class can only directly inherit from a single base class. However, through interfaces, you can achieve some form of multiple inheritance by inheriting from multiple interfaces.