IsA or HasA?

Expertise: Intermediate
Language: C++

February 20, 1998

IsA or HasA?

When designing a class hierarchy, you may face a decision between inheritance (aka IsA ) vs. containment (aka HasA) relation. For instance, if you are designing a

 Radio

class, and you already have the following classes implemented for you in some library:

 Dial, ElectricAppliance.

It is quite obvious that your Radio should be derived from

 ElectricAppliance.

















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