What is use of inheritance in Java?

In Java, inheritance is an is-a relationship. That is, we use inheritance only if there exists an is-a relationship between two classes. For example, Car is a Vehicle .

On the basis of class, there can be three types of inheritance in java: single, multilevel and hierarchical . In java programming, multiple and hybrid inheritance is supported through interface only. We will learn about interfaces later.

The basic idea of Inheritance is to create the new class (called child class or derived or subclass) from an existing class (called parent class or Base or Superclass) . That is, the child class inherits the properties (methods and fields) of the parent class.