How do I use composition with inheritance?

Question

I\'m going to try to ask my question in the context of a simple example...

Let\'s say I have an abstract base class Car. Car has-a basic Engine object. I have a method

Answer 1

Depending on your particular language semantics, there are a few ways to do this. Off the cuff my initial thought would be to provide a protected constructor:

public class Car {
    private Engine engine;

    public Car() {
        this(new Engine());
    }

    protected Car(Engine engine) {
        this.engine = engine;
    }

    public void start() {
        this.engine.start();
    }
}

public class Ferrari {
    public Ferrari() {
        super(new TurboEngine());
    }
}