3.1 Inheritance

Inheritance is a basic feature of an object-oriented language. In EIEIO, a defined class specifies the super classes from which it inherits by using the second argument to defclass. Here is an example:

(defclass my-baseclass ()
   ((slot-A :initarg :slot-A)
    (slot-B :initarg :slot-B))
  "My Baseclass.")

To subclass from my-baseclass, we specify it in the superclass list:

(defclass my-subclass (my-baseclass)
   ((specific-slot-A :initarg specific-slot-A)
    )
   "My subclass of my-baseclass")

Instances of my-subclass will inherit slot-A and slot-B, in addition to having specific-slot-A from the declaration of my-subclass.

EIEIO also supports multiple inheritance. Suppose we define a second baseclass, perhaps an “interface” class, like this:

(defclass my-interface ()
   ((interface-slot :initarg :interface-slot))
   "An interface to special behavior."
   :abstract t)

The interface class defines a special interface-slot, and also specifies itself as abstract. Abstract classes cannot be instantiated. It is not required to make interfaces abstract, but it is a good programming practice.

We can now modify our definition of my-subclass to use this interface class, together with our original base class:

(defclass my-subclass (my-baseclass my-interface)
   ((specific-slot-A :initarg specific-slot-A)
    )
   "My subclass of my-baseclass")

With this, my-subclass also has interface-slot.

If my-baseclass and my-interface had slots with the same name, then the superclass showing up in the list first defines the slot attributes.

Inheritance in EIEIO is more than just combining different slots. It is also important in method invocation. Methods.

If a method is called on an instance of my-subclass, and that method only has an implementation on my-baseclass, or perhaps my-interface, then the implementation for the baseclass is called.

If there is a method implementation for my-subclass, and another in my-baseclass, the implementation for my-subclass can call up to the superclass as well.