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Multiple Interface Inheritance / Interface Inheritance

 
Ranch Hand
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Inteface A

Interface B extends A ---> Is it Interface Inheritance ?

Class C implements B --> Is it Multiple Interface Inheritance ?

Java does not support Interface Inheritace.

 
lowercase baba
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an interface is a contract - nothing else. When you have

Interface A {}

you are saying "here are the rules for what it means to implement the 'A' interface.

When you say "implements A", you are saying "This class/abstract class will implement everything required by the A interface"

so,

interface B extends A

is just saying "here are the rules for implementing the B interface, which by the way, must also implement the A interface."

and "Class C implements B" is just saying "I promise that the C class will implement everything required by the B interface (which just so happens to also require implementation of the A interface".

it's not really inheritance at all.

 
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fred rosenberger wrote:

interface B implements A



Just a nitpick, but interfaces extend other interfaces, not implement.
 
fred rosenberger
lowercase baba
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oops...
 
Java Cowboy
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Multiple inheritance means: a class that extends two classes.

But if you make a "chain": B extends A, and C extends B - then that is not multiple inheritance.

Java doesn't have multiple inheritance because it causes some hard problems like the diamond problem and because it's not an essential feature. A large part of Java was designed to look like C++, but with the hard parts left out. This is an example of a C++ feature that was left out of Java.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_inheritance
 
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