Python, a versatile and widely-used programming language, offers powerful object-oriented programming (OOP) features, including inheritance and polymorphism. These concepts are fundamental in creating maintainable and efficient code. In this beginner’s guide, we’ll delve into inheritance and polymorphism in Python, providing code snippets and explanations to help you grasp these crucial concepts.

Inheritance is a core concept in OOP that allows you to create a new class by inheriting attributes and methods from an existing class. The existing class is called the parent class or base class, and the new class is referred to as the child class or derived class. Let’s illustrate this with a simple example:

class Animal:
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name
def speak(self):
pass
class Dog(Animal):
def speak(self):
return f"{self.name} says Woof!"
class Cat(Animal):
def speak(self):
return f"{self.name} says Meow!"

In the code above, we have a base class Animal with a constructor __init__ and a method speak, which is defined but left unimplemented. Then, we create two child classes, Dog and Cat, that inherit from Animal and provide their own implementations of the speak method.

Now, let’s see how inheritance works in practice:

dog = Dog("Buddy")
cat = Cat("Whiskers")
print(dog.speak())  # Output: "Buddy says Woof!"
print(cat.speak())  # Output: "Whiskers says Meow!"

As you can see, the child classes inherit the speak method from the parent class, but they can override it with their own implementation.

Polymorphism is another essential concept in OOP, which allows objects of different classes to be treated as objects of a common superclass. It enables you to write more generic and reusable code. In Python, polymorphism is achieved through method overriding, as demonstrated in the previous example.

Let’s extend our understanding of polymorphism by creating a function that works with objects of different classes:

def animal_sound(animal):
return…