Method overriding in Python - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Method overriding

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are creating a simple program for a zoo. You want to describe animals and how they make sounds. Different animals make different sounds, but they all share the idea of making a sound.

🎯 Goal: You will build two classes: a base class Animal with a method make_sound, and a derived class Dog that overrides the make_sound method to show a different sound.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a class called Animal with a method make_sound that prints 'Some generic sound'.

Create a class called Dog that inherits from Animal.

Override the make_sound method in Dog to print 'Bark!'.

Create an object of Animal and call its make_sound method.

Create an object of Dog and call its make_sound method.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Method overriding is used in many programs where different objects share common behavior but need to customize it. For example, different animals making different sounds in a zoo app.

💼 Career

Understanding method overriding is essential for object-oriented programming, which is widely used in software development jobs to create flexible and reusable code.

1

Create the base class Animal

Create a class called Animal with a method make_sound that prints 'Some generic sound'.

Python

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use class Animal: to start the class. Define make_sound with def make_sound(self): and inside it use print('Some generic sound').

2

Create the Dog class inheriting Animal

Create a class called Dog that inherits from Animal.

Python

class Animal:
    def make_sound(self):
        print('Some generic sound')

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use class Dog(Animal): to create the Dog class that inherits from Animal. For now, use pass inside.

3

Override the make_sound method in Dog

Override the make_sound method in the Dog class to print 'Bark!'.

Python

class Animal:
    def make_sound(self):
        print('Some generic sound')

class Dog(Animal):
    # Your code here

Need a hint?

Inside Dog, define def make_sound(self): and inside it use print('Bark!').

4

Create objects and call make_sound

Create an object called animal of class Animal and call its make_sound method. Then create an object called dog of class Dog and call its make_sound method.

Python

class Animal:
    def make_sound(self):
        print('Some generic sound')

class Dog(Animal):
    def make_sound(self):
        print('Bark!')

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Create animal = Animal() and call animal.make_sound(). Then create dog = Dog() and call dog.make_sound().