Having a parent class in Java is not mandatory. It is a good approach to extend from a parent class that has much of the functionality that the current class needs already coded. This helps us re-use functionality/code and avoid redundant/duplicate code.
Private members are not inherited from the parent class.
Object is the topmost class in the Java Class hierarchy. There is no Class above Object. All classes in Java are implicitly derived from Object.
Object Class is the parent class of all classes in java.Every class in the Java system is a descendant (direct or indirect) of the Object class.
If you mean Java's RuntimeException class, its parent class is java.lang.Exception
Java created a file called class, and is identified by having the .class at the end. This file includes a Java bytecode, which then can be used on the Java Virtual Machine.
Java does not support multiple inheritance; a subclass cannot have more than one parent. Java compensates for this with interfaces. A class can implement multiple interfaces, but can only extend one class.
In Java, you use the final modifier to prevent a class from having any subclasses.
Java source files have the .java extension, compiled Java class files have the .class extension.
It is basically the same as inheritance in other languages. A derived class can inherit from a parent class, meaning that the derived class will have the characteristics (variables, and procedures - called fields, and methods, in this case) of the parent class. It may also have additional characteristics, defined directly in the derived class.
You use function overriding in Java when you inherit a bunch of features from a class and for a few particular cases alone, you do not wish to use the functionality of the parent class and wish to implement a custom feature in your class. In such cases, you create a method in your class with the same name and signature as in your parent class, thereby overloading it. this way only your current class will be used by the JVM unless specifically invoked by using the super keyword.
In Java, or in any object oriented language such as C++, a method defined in super (parent) class does not need to be defined in a subclass, because that is the primary purpose of inheritance. Object oriented programming allows you to define and declare a class that implements the behavior for an object. Inheritance allows you to refine, or subclass, that class by "reusing" all of the functionality of the parent class into the sub class, adding additional definition and declaration for the sub class. If the subclass needs to change a parent class method, it can overload that method. This is called abstraction.
Inheritance in Java refers to the feature wherein the code/functionality of one class can be used in another class that extends this class. Example: public class Parent { ... .. } public class Child extends Parent { ... .. . } Here the class Child extends the class Parent and hence the methods of Parent are available for Child to use. This way we are re-using the code in the parent class in the child class instead of re-writing the whole thing again.