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Python / Core Python Fundamentals Interview Questions

How does inheritance work in Python and what is method resolution order (MRO)?

Inheritance lets a child class reuse and extend behaviour from a parent class. Specify the parent in parentheses after the class name. The child gets all the parent's methods automatically and can override any of them.

class Animal:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

    def speak(self):
        raise NotImplementedError

class Dog(Animal):
    def speak(self):
        return f'{self.name} says Woof!'

class Cat(Animal):
    def speak(self):
        return f'{self.name} says Meow!'

animals = [Dog('Rex'), Cat('Whiskers')]
for a in animals:
    print(a.speak())  # polymorphism — same call, different behaviour

super() calls the parent class's version of a method, essential when overriding __init__ to extend rather than replace the parent's initialisation:

class ServiceDog(Dog):
    def __init__(self, name, service_type):
        super().__init__(name)             # call Dog -> Animal __init__
        self.service_type = service_type

Python supports multiple inheritance: class C(A, B):. The MRO (Method Resolution Order) determines which class's method is used when there is ambiguity. Python uses the C3 linearisation algorithm. Inspect it with ClassName.__mro__ or ClassName.mro(). The order goes left-to-right through the parent list, depth-first, with a rule ensuring every class appears before its own parents.

What does super().__init__() call inside a child class?
Which algorithm does Python use to compute the Method Resolution Order?

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