Difference between Inherits and Imports

[Arc]

I noticed you can only Inherit one class per class. But you can Import all the classes you want. Don't Inherit and Import basically do the same thing?

[Cander]

Import is just a shortcut for namespaces. Inherit makes a class inheit the abilities of the inherited class.

They are completely different,

[VBCrazyCoder]

Absolutely Not!

Inheritance allows you to extend a class, while importing only gives you access to a class (or set of classes). Pick up any VB book or search the help - it will give you details.

Also, VS.NET 2003 does allow multiple inheritance.

[Arc]

I see, so Inherit is like just adding the methods of another class to your class and other people could then use all those methods as if it were a single class. So if i created a class called MyClass and added 2 methods and i imported another class that had 5 methods then i compiled it, if i were to create an instance of MyClass i would have access to all 7 methods.

Whereas if i Imported a class with 5 other methods i would have access to those inside my class but anyone using my class would not. I think that's it.?

[Cander]

Think of imports as a With statment. If everytime you want to show a message box for example.

Without an Imports:

system.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Hello")

if you add an Imports System.Windows.Forms, then all you need is

MessageBox.Show("hello")

[Arc]

I see, so i'd still have access to every method, it just makes it shorter to type? Thanks.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Inheritance can look very similar, but the distinction is important.

If you have a class Fish, it will have certain properties and methods, like swim, jump, etc. If you make a class Bass, that inherits class Fish, it has the same methods (unless you override them such that a Bass swims in a peculiarly Bassy fashion).

Thus when you make an instance of class Bass, you can call its methods, and the public properties of both it and the base class Fish. If all of the base members are public, that would behave fairly similar to Imports. However, the thing about inheritance is that it allows you to include the functionality of the base class in an object without removing the security that the encapsulation within a class provides.

I think this is a lousy exlanation, I hope there's something worthwhile in it.