Inheritance


JavaScript uses prototype based inheritance. Every object has a prototype, and when a method of the object is called then JavaScript tries to find the right function to execute from the prototype object.

The prototype attribute

Without using the prototype object, we can define the object Person like this:

function Person(name, age)
{
    this.name = name;
    this.age = age;

    function describe()
    {
        return this.name + ", " + this.age + " years old.";
    }
}

When creating instances of the Person object, we create a new copy of all members and methods of the functions. This means that every instance of an object will have its own name and age properties, as well as its own describe function.

However, if we use the Person.prototype object and assign a function to it, it will also work.

function Person(name, age)
{
    this.name = name;
    this.age = age;
}

Person.prototype.describe = function()
{
    return this.name + ", " + this.age + " years old.";
}

When creating instances of the Person object, they will not contain a copy of the describe function. Instead, when calling an object method, JavaScript will attempt to resolve the describe function first from the object itself, and then using its prototype attribute.

Inheritance

Let's say we want to create a Person object, and a Student object derived from Person:

var Person = function() {};

Person.prototype.initialize = function(name, age)
{
    this.name = name;
    this.age = age;
}

Person.prototype.describe = function()
{
    return this.name + ", " + this.age + " years old.";
}

var Student = function() {};
Student.prototype = new Person();

Student.prototype.learn = function(subject)
{
    console.log(this.name + " just learned " + subject);
}

var me = new Student();

me.initialize("John", 25);
me.learn("Inheritance");

As we can see in this example, the initialize method belongs to Person and the learn method belongs to Student, both of which are now part of the me object.

Keep in mind that there are many ways of doing inheritance in JavaScript, and this is just one of them.

Exercise

Create an object called Teacher derived from the Person class, and implement a method called teach which receives a string called subject, and prints out:

[teacher's name] is now teaching [subject]

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