Wrap-Up

Many applications written with inheritance could be written with composition instead, and vice versa. Rewrite class BasePlusCommissionEmployee4 (Fig. 10.14) of the CommissionEmployee3BasePlusCommissionEmployee4 hierarchy to use composition rather than inheritance.

Discuss the ways in which inheritance promotes software reuse, saves time during application development and helps prevent errors.

Draw a UML class diagram for an inheritance hierarchy for students at a university similar to the hierarchy shown in Fig. 10.2. Use Student as the base class of the hierarchy, then extend Student with classes UndergraduateStudent and GraduateStudent. Continue to extend the hierarchy as deeply (i.e., as many levels) as possible. For example, Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior might extend UndergraduateStudent, and DoctoralStudent and MastersStudent might be derived classes of GraduateStudent. After drawing the hierarchy, discuss the relationships that exist between the classes. [Note: You do not need to write any code for this exercise.]

The world of shapes is much richer than the shapes included in the inheritance hierarchy of Fig. 10.3. Write down all the shapes you can think ofboth two-dimensional and three-dimensionaland form them into a more complete Shape hierarchy with as many levels as possible. Your hierarchy should have class Shape at the top. Class TwoDimensionalShape and class ThreeDimensionalShape should extend Shape. Add additional derived classes, such as Quadrilateral and Sphere, at their correct locations in the hierarchy as necessary.

Some programmers prefer not to use protected access, because they believe it breaks the encapsulation of the base class. Discuss the relative merits of using protected access vs. using private access in base classes.

Write an inheritance hierarchy for classes Quadrilateral, TRapezoid, Parallelogram, Rectangle and Square. Use Quadrilateral as the base class of the hierarchy. Make the hierarchy as deep (i.e., as many levels) as possible. Specify the instance variables, properties and methods for each class. The private instance variables of Quadrilateral should be the x-y coordinate pairs for the four endpoints of the Quadrilateral. Write an application that instantiates objects of your classes and outputs each object's area (except Quadrilateral).

(Package Inheritance Hierarchy) Package-delivery services, such as FedEx®, DHL® and UPS®, offer a number of different shipping options, each with specific costs associated. Create an inheritance hierarchy to represent various types of packages. Use Package as the base class of the hierarchy, then include classes TwoDayPackage and OvernightPackage that derive from Package. Base class Package should include private instance variables representing the name, address, city, state and ZIP code for the package's sender and recipient, and instance variables that store the weight (in ounces) and cost per ounce to ship the package. Package's constructor should initialize these private instance variables with public properties. Ensure that the weight and cost per ounce contain positive values. Package should provide a public method CalculateCost that returns a decimal indicating the cost associated with shipping the package. Package's CalculateCost method should determine the cost by multiplying the weight by the cost per ounce. Derived class TwoDayPackage should inherit the functionality of base class Package, but also include an instance variable that represents a flat fee that the shipping company charges for two-day delivery service. TwoDayPackage's constructor should receive a value to initialize this instance variable. TwoDayPackage should redefine method CalculateCost so that it computes the shipping cost by adding the flat fee to the weight-based cost calculated by base class Package's CalculateCost method. Class OvernightPackage should inherit directly from class Package and contain an instance variable representing an additional fee per ounce charged for overnight-delivery service. OvernightPackage should redefine method CalculateCost so that it adds the additional fee per ounce to the standard cost per ounce before calculating the shipping cost. Write a test application that creates objects of each type of Package and tests method CalculateCost.

(Account Inheritance Hierarchy) Create an inheritance hierarchy that a bank might use to represent customers' bank accounts. All customers at this bank can deposit (i.e., credit) money into their accounts and withdraw (i.e., debit) money from their accounts. More specific types of accounts also exist. Savings accounts, for instance, earn interest on the money they hold. Checking accounts, on the other hand, charge a fee per transaction.

Create base class Account and derived classes SavingsAccount and CheckingAccount that inherit from class Account. Base class Account should include one private instance variable of type decimal to represent the account balance. The class should provide a constructor that receives an initial balance and uses it to initialize the instance variable with a public property. The property should validate the initial balance to ensure that it is greater than or equal to 0.0. If not, the balance should be set to 0.0, and the set accessor should display an error message, indicating that the initial balance was invalid. The class should provide two public methods. Method Credit should add an amount to the current balance. Method Debit should withdraw money from the Account and ensure that the debit amount does not exceed the Account's balance. If it does, the balance should be left unchanged, and the method should print the message "Debit amount exceeded account balance." The class should also provide a get accessor in property Balance that returns the current balance.

Derived class SavingsAccount should inherit the functionality of an Account, but also include a decimal instance variable indicating the interest rate (percentage) assigned to the Account. SavingsAccount's constructor should receive the initial balance, as well as an initial value for the interest rate. SavingsAccount should provide public method CalculateInterest that returns a decimal indicating the amount of interest earned by an account. Method CalculateInterest should determine this amount by multiplying the interest rate by the account balance. [Note: SavingsAccount should inherit methods Credit and Debit without redefining them.]

Derived class CheckingAccount should inherit from base class Account and include a decimal instance variable that represents the fee charged per transaction. CheckingAccount's constructor should receive the initial balance, as well as a parameter indicating a fee amount. Class CheckingAccount should redefine methods Credit and Debit so that they subtract the fee from the account balance whenever either transaction is performed successfully. CheckingAccount's versions of these methods should invoke the base-class Account version to perform the updates to an account balance. CheckingAccount's Debit method should charge a fee only if money is actually withdrawn (i.e., the debit amount does not exceed the account balance). [Hint: Define Account's Debit method so that it returns a bool indicating whether money was withdrawn. Then use the return value to determine whether a fee should be charged.]

After defining the classes in this hierarchy, write an application that creates objects of each class and tests their methods. Add interest to the SavingsAccount object by first invoking its CalculateInterest method, then passing the returned interest amount to the object's Credit method.