Inheritance in Visual Basic .NET

Inheritance is a mechanism in Visual Basic .NET through which one class can derive the functionality (fields and methods) from another class. The class that is being inherited is known as the base class (or superclass), and the class that inherits the base class is known as the derived class (or subclass).

To create a derived class in Visual Basic .NET, you need to use the Inherits keyword and specify the name of the base class after it. Here's an example:

``vb.net Public Class Animal Public Property Name As String


Public Sub New(name As String)

        Me.Name = name

    End Sub
Public Overridable Sub Speak()

        Console.WriteLine("I am an animal.")

    End Sub

End Class
Public Class Dog

    Inherits Animal
Public Sub New(name As String)

        MyBase.New(name)

    End Sub
Public Overrides Sub Speak()

        Console.WriteLine("I am a dog named {0}.", Name)

    End Sub

End Class



The Animal class is the base class that has a property Name and a method Speak(). The Dog class is the derived class that inherits the Name property and Speak() method from the Animal class. It also has its own constructor that calls the Animal class constructor using the MyBase keyword.
The Override keyword is used in the Speak() method of the Dog class to indicate that it is overriding the Speak() method of the Animal class. This means that when the Speak() method is called on a Dog object, it will execute the code in the Dog class's Speak() method instead of the Animal class's Speak() method.

Here's an example of how to use the Dog class:

vb.net

Dim myDog As New Dog("Fido")

myDog.Speak() ' Output: I am a dog named Fido.

In this example, we create a new Dog object with the name "Fido" and call its Speak() method. The output will be "I am a dog named Fido.", which is the custom message defined in the Dog class's Speak()` method.

In summary, inheritance in Visual Basic .NET allows you to create new classes based on existing ones, which can save you time and effort in writing new code. By reusing the code from the base class, you can focus on adding new functionality to the derived class.

Inheritance in Visual Basic .NET

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