Base Class¶
A base class is a class that serves as the root of an inheritance hierarchy. Other classes extend it to inherit its properties and methods.
A base class may be concrete, meaning it can be instantiated directly, or it may be abstract, preventing direct instantiation and forcing subclasses to implement its abstract methods.
A PHP class may only extend one base class, but it may implement multiple interfaces.
There are native base classes, like Exception and Error, from which all exceptions and errors inherit.
<?php
class Animal {
public function breathe(): string {
return 'inhale/exhale';
}
}
class Dog extends Animal {
public function speak(): string {
return 'woof';
}
}
$dog = new Dog();
echo $dog->breathe(); // inherited from base class
?>
Related : Inheritance, extends, parent, Abstract Class, Child Class, Subclass, Class, Interface, Base
