Multiple inheritance is a feature of some object-oriented computer programming languages in which a class can inherit characteristics and features from more than one superclass. It is distinct to single inheritance, where a class may only inherit from one particular superclass.
Languages that support multiple inheritance include C++, Common Lisp via the Common Lisp Object System, Perl and Python.
Multiple inheritance has been a touchy issue for many years, with opponents pointing to its increased complexity and ambiguity in situations such as the "diamond problem", where it may be ambiguous as to which superclass a particular feature is inherited from if more than one superclass implements said feature. This can be addressed in various ways, including using virtual inheritance.
Read more about Multiple Inheritance: Details, Implementations, The Diamond Problem
Famous quotes containing the words multiple and/or inheritance:
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)
“Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 14:28,29.