What is inheritance in object-oriented programming?

Inheritance allows creating new classes based on existing ones, inheriting their fields and methods. The new class is called a subclass (or derived class), and the existing one — a superclass (or parent class).

Advantages of inheritance:

• Code reuse: Eliminates code duplication, as common functionality is defined in the superclass.
• Extensibility: A subclass can add new fields and methods, as well as override superclass methods.
• Class hierarchy: Allows organizing classes into logical hierarchical structures.

Example:

class Animal { // Superclass
    void eat() {
        System.out.println("This animal eats food.");
    }
}

class Dog extends Animal { // Subclass, inherits from Animal
    void bark() {
        System.out.println("Woof woof!");
    }
}

class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Dog myDog = new Dog();
        myDog.eat(); // Call method from superclass
        myDog.bark(); // Call method from subclass
    }
}

It is important to remember that Java supports only single inheritance of classes (a class can inherit from only one superclass), but it supports multiple inheritance of interfaces.