PHP Inheritance

Inheritance lets child classes reuse code from parent classes. It's perfect for creating specialized versions of existing classes without duplicating code!

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Basic Inheritance

<?php
class Animal {
    public function makeSound() {
        echo "Some sound";
    }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
    // Inherits makeSound()
}

$dog = new Dog();
$dog->makeSound();  // Works!
?>

Method Overriding

<?php
class Dog extends Animal {
    public function makeSound() {
        echo "Woof!";  // Override parent method
    }
}
?>

Calling Parent Methods

<?php
class Dog extends Animal {
    public function makeSound() {
        parent::makeSound();  // Call parent version
        echo " and Woof!";
    }
}
?>

Summary

What's Next?

Next, learn about Abstract Classes - blueprints that can't be instantiated!