Inheritance is a powerful way to achieve code reuse, but it is not always the best tool for the job. Used inappropriately, it leads to fragile software. It is safe to use inheritance within a package, where the subclass and the superclass implementations are under the control of the same programmers. It is also safe to use inheritance when extending classes specifically designed and documented for extension (Item 19). Inheriting from ordinary concrete classes across package boundaries, however, is dangerous. As a reminder, this book uses the word “inheritance” to mean implementation inheritance (when one class extends another). The problems discussed in this item do not apply to interface inheritance (when a class implements an interface or when one interface extends another).
继承是实现代码复用的一种强大方法，但它并不总是最佳的工具。使用不当会导致软件变得脆弱。在包中使用继承是安全的，其中子类和超类实现由相同的程序员控制。在对专为扩展而设计和文档化的类时使用继承也是安全的（Item-19）。然而，对普通的具体类进行跨包边界的继承是危险的。作为提醒，本书使用「继承」一词来表示实现继承（当一个类扩展另一个类时）。本条目中讨论的问题不适用于接口继承（当类实现接口或一个接口扩展另一个接口时）。
Unlike method invocation, inheritance violates encapsulation [Snyder86]. In other words, a subclass depends on the implementation details of its superclass for its proper function. The superclass’s implementation may change from release to release, and if it does, the subclass may break, even though its code has not been touched. As a consequence, a subclass must evolve in tandem with its superclass, unless the superclass’s authors have designed and documented it specifically for the purpose of being extended.
与方法调用不同，继承破坏了封装 [Snyder86]。换句话说，子类的功能正确与否依赖于它的超类的实现细节。超类的实现可能在版本之间发生变化，如果发生了变化，子类可能会崩溃，即使子类的代码没有被修改过。因此，子类必须与其超类同步发展，除非超类是专门为扩展的目的而设计的，并具有很明确的文档说明。
To make this concrete, let’s suppose we have a program that uses a HashSet. To tune the performance of our program, we need to query the HashSet as to how many elements have been added since it was created (not to be confused with its current size, which goes down when an element is removed). To provide this functionality, we write a HashSet variant that keeps count of the number of attempted element insertions and exports an accessor for this count. The HashSet class contains two methods capable of adding elements, add and addAll, so we override both of these methods:
为了使问题更具体一些，让我们假设有一个使用 HashSet 的程序。为了优化程序的性能，我们需要查询 HashSet，以确定自创建以来添加了多少元素（不要与当前的大小混淆，当元素被删除时，当前的大小会递减）。为了提供这个功能，我们编写了一个 HashSet 变量，它记录试图插入的元素数量，并为这个计数导出一个访问。HashSet 类包含两个能够添加元素的方法，add 和 addAll，因此我们覆盖这两个方法：
// Broken - Inappropriate use of inheritance!
public class InstrumentedHashSet<E> extends HashSet<E> {
// The number of attempted element insertions
private int addCount = 0;
public InstrumentedHashSet() {
}
public InstrumentedHashSet(int initCap, float loadFactor) {
super(initCap, loadFactor);
}
@Override
public boolean add(E e) {
addCount++;
return super.add(e);
}
@Override
public boolean addAll(Collection<? extends E> c) {
addCount += c.size();
return super.addAll(c);
}
public int getAddCount() {
return addCount;
}
}
This class looks reasonable, but it doesn’t work. Suppose we create an instance and add three elements using the addAll method. Incidentally, note that we create a list using the static factory method List.of, which was added in Java 9; if you’re using an earlier release, use Arrays.asList instead:
这个类看起来是合理的，但是它不起作用。假设我们创建了一个实例，并使用 addAll 方法添加了三个元素。顺便说一下，我们使用 Java 9 中添加的静态工厂方法 List.of 创建了一个列表；如果你使用的是早期版本，那么使用 Arrays.asList:
InstrumentedHashSet<String> s = new InstrumentedHashSet<>();
s.addAll(List.of("Snap", "Crackle", "Pop"));
We would expect the getAddCount method to return three at this point, but it returns six. What went wrong? Internally, HashSet’s addAll method is implemented on top of its add method, although HashSet, quite reasonably,does not document this implementation detail. The addAll method in Instrumented-HashSet added three to addCount and then invoked HashSet’s addAll implementation using super.addAll. This in turn invoked the add method, as overridden in InstrumentedHashSet, once for each element. Each of these three invocations added one more to addCount,for a total increase of six: each element added with the addAll method is double-counted.
我们希望 getAddCount 方法此时返回 3，但它返回 6。到底是哪里出了错？在内部，HashSet 的 addAll 方法是在其 add 方法之上实现的，尽管 HashSet 相当合理地没有记录这个实现细节。InstrumentedHashSet 中的 addAll 方法向 addCount 添加了三个元素，然后使用 super.addAll 调用 HashSet 的 addAll 实现。这反过来调用 add 方法（在 InstrumentedHashSet 中被覆盖），每个元素一次。这三个调用中的每一个都向 addCount 添加了一个元素，总共增加了 6 个元素：使用 addAll 方法添加的每个元素都被重复计数。
We could “fix” the subclass by eliminating its override of the addAll method. While the resulting class would work, it would depend for its proper function on the fact that HashSet’s addAll method is implemented on top of its add method. This “self-use” is an implementation detail, not guaranteed to hold in all implementations of the Java platform and subject to change from release to release. Therefore, the resulting InstrumentedHashSet class would be fragile.
我们可以通过消除 addAll 方法的覆盖来「修复」子类。虽然生成的类可以工作，但它的正确功能取决于 HashSet 的 addAll 方法是在 add 方法之上实现的事实。这种「自用」是实现细节，不能保证在 Java 平台的所有实现中都存在，也不能保证在版本之间进行更改。因此，结果得到的 InstrumentedHashSet 类是脆弱的。
It would be slightly better to override the addAll method to iterate over the specified collection, calling the add method once for each element. This would guarantee the correct result whether or not HashSet’s addAll method were implemented atop its add method because HashSet’s addAll implementation would no longer be invoked. This technique, however, does not solve all our problems. It amounts to reimplementing superclass methods that may or may not result in self-use, which is difficult, time-consuming, errorprone,and may reduce performance. Additionally, it isn’t always possible because some methods cannot be implemented without access to private fields inaccessible to the subclass.
覆盖 addAll 方法以遍历指定的集合稍微好一些，为每个元素调用一次 add 方法。无论 HashSet 的 addAll 方法是否在其 add 方法之上实现，这都将保证正确的结果，因为 HashSet 的 addAll 实现将不再被调用。然而，这种技术并不能解决我们所有的问题。它相当于重新实现超类方法，这可能会导致「自用」，也可能不会，这是困难的、耗时的、容易出错的，并且可能会降低性能。此外，这并不总是可能的，因为如果不访问子类无法访问的私有字段，就无法实现某些方法。
A related cause of fragility in subclasses is that their superclass can acquire new methods in subsequent releases. Suppose a program depends for its security on the fact that all elements inserted into some collection satisfy some predicate.This can be guaranteed by subclassing the collection and overriding each method capable of adding an element to ensure that the predicate is satisfied before adding the element. This works fine until a new method capable of inserting an element is added to the superclass in a subsequent release. Once this happens, it becomes possible to add an “illegal” element merely by invoking the new method, which is not overridden in the subclass. This is not a purely theoretical problem. Several security holes of this nature had to be fixed when Hashtable and Vector were retrofitted to participate in the Collections Framework.
子类脆弱的一个原因是他们的超类可以在后续版本中获得新的方法。假设一个程序的安全性取决于插入到某个集合中的所有元素满足某个断言。这可以通过子类化集合和覆盖每个能够添加元素的方法来确保在添加元素之前满足断言。这可以很好地工作，直到在后续版本中向超类中添加能够插入元素的新方法。一旦发生这种情况，只需调用新方法就可以添加「非法」元素，而新方法在子类中不会被覆盖。这不是一个纯粹的理论问题。当 Hashtable 和 Vector 被重新改装以加入 Collections 框架时，必须修复几个这种性质的安全漏洞。
Both of these problems stem from overriding methods. You might think that it is safe to extend a class if you merely add new methods and refrain from overriding existing methods. While this sort of extension is much safer, it is not without risk. If the superclass acquires a new method in a subsequent release and you have the bad luck to have given the subclass a method with the same signature and a different return type, your subclass will no longer compile [JLS, 8.4.8.3]. If you’ve given the subclass a method with the same signature and return type as the new superclass method, then you’re now overriding it, so you’re subject to the problems described earlier. Furthermore, it is doubtful that your method will fulfill the contract of the new superclass method, because that contract had not yet been written when you wrote the subclass method.
这两个问题都源于覆盖方法。你可能认为，如果只添加新方法，并且不覆盖现有方法，那么扩展类是安全的。虽然这种扩展会更安全，但也不是没有风险。如果超类在随后的版本中获得了一个新方法，而你不幸给了子类一个具有相同签名和不同返回类型的方法，那么你的子类将不再编译 [JLS, 8.4.8.3]。如果给子类一个方法，该方法具有与新超类方法相同的签名和返回类型，那么现在要覆盖它，因此你要面对前面描述的问题。此外，你的方法是否能够完成新的超类方法的约定是值得怀疑的，因为在你编写子类方法时，该约定还没有被写入。
Luckily, there is a way to avoid all of the problems described above. Instead of extending an existing class, give your new class a private field that references an instance of the existing class. This design is called composition because the existing class becomes a component of the new one. Each instance method in the new class invokes the corresponding method on the contained instance of the existing class and returns the results. This is known as forwarding, and the methods in the new class are known as forwarding methods. The resulting class will be rock solid, with no dependencies on the implementation details of the existing class. Even adding new methods to the existing class will have no impact on the new class. To make this concrete, here’s a replacement for InstrumentedHashSet that uses the composition-and-forwarding approach. Note that the implementation is broken into two pieces, the class itself and a reusable forwarding class, which contains all of the forwarding methods and nothing else:
幸运的是，有一种方法可以避免上述所有问题。与其扩展现有类，不如为新类提供一个引用现有类实例的私有字段。这种设计称为复合，因为现有的类是新类的一个组件。新类中的每个实例方法调用现有类的包含实例上的对应方法，并返回结果。这称为转发，新类中的方法称为转发方法。生成的类将非常坚固，不依赖于现有类的实现细节。即使向现有类添加新方法，也不会对新类产生影响。为了使其具体化，这里有一个使用复合和转发方法的方法，用以替代 InstrumentedHashSet。注意，实现被分成两部分，类本身和一个可复用的转发类，其中包含所有的转发方法，没有其他内容：
// Wrapper class - uses composition in place of inheritance
public class InstrumentedSet<E> extends ForwardingSet<E> {
private int addCount = 0;
public InstrumentedSet(Set<E> s) {
super(s);
}
@Override
public boolean add(E e) {
addCount++;
return super.add(e);
}
@Override
public boolean addAll(Collection<? extends E> c) {
addCount += c.size();
return super.addAll(c);
}
public int getAddCount() {
return addCount;
}
}
// Reusable forwarding class
public class ForwardingSet<E> implements Set<E> {
private final Set<E> s;
public ForwardingSet(Set<E> s) { this.s = s; }
public void clear() { s.clear(); }
public boolean contains(Object o) { return s.contains(o); }
public boolean isEmpty() { return s.isEmpty(); }
public int size() { return s.size(); }
public Iterator<E> iterator() { return s.iterator(); }
public boolean add(E e) { return s.add(e); }
public boolean remove(Object o) { return s.remove(o); }
public boolean containsAll(Collection<?> c)
{ return s.containsAll(c); }
public boolean addAll(Collection<? extends E> c)
{ return s.addAll(c); }
public boolean removeAll(Collection<?> c)
{ return s.removeAll(c); }
public boolean retainAll(Collection<?> c)
{ return s.retainAll(c); }
public Object[] toArray() { return s.toArray(); }
public <T> T[] toArray(T[] a) { return s.toArray(a); }
@Override
public boolean equals(Object o){ return s.equals(o); }
@Override
public int hashCode() { return s.hashCode(); }
@Override
public String toString() { return s.toString(); }
}
The design of the InstrumentedSet class is enabled by the existence of the Set interface, which captures the functionality of the HashSet class.Besides being robust, this design is extremely flexible. The InstrumentedSet class implements the Set interface and has a single constructor whose argument is also of type Set. In essence, the class transforms one Set into another, adding the instrumentation functionality. Unlike the inheritance-based approach, which works only for a single concrete class and requires a separate constructor for each supported constructor in the superclass,the wrapper class can be used to instrument any Set implementation and will work in conjunction with any preexisting constructor:
InstrumentedSet 类的设计是通过 Set 接口来实现的，这个接口可以捕获 HashSet 类的功能。除了健壮外，这个设计非常灵活。InstrumentedSet 类实现了 Set 接口，有一个构造函数，它的参数也是 Set 类型的。实际上，这个类可以将任何一个 Set 转换成另一个 Set，并添加 instrumentation 的功能。基于继承的方法只适用于单个具体类，并且需要为超类中每个受支持的构造函数提供单独的构造函数，与此不同的是，包装器类可用于仪器任何集合实现，并将与任何现有构造函数一起工作：
Set<Instant> times = new InstrumentedSet<>(new TreeSet<>(cmp));
Set<E> s = new InstrumentedSet<>(new HashSet<>(INIT_CAPACITY));
The InstrumentedSet class can even be used to temporarily instrument a set instance that has already been used without instrumentation:
InstrumentedSet 类甚至还可以用来临时配置一个没有 instrumentation 功能的 Set 实例：
static void walk(Set<Dog> dogs) {
InstrumentedSet<Dog> iDogs = new InstrumentedSet<>(dogs);
... // Within this method use iDogs instead of dogs
}
The InstrumentedSet class is known as a wrapper class because each InstrumentedSet instance contains (“wraps”) another Set instance. This is also known as the Decorator pattern [Gamma95] because the InstrumentedSet class “decorates” a set by adding instrumentation. Sometimes the combination of composition and forwarding is loosely referred to as delegation. Technically it’s not delegation unless the wrapper object passes itself to the wrapped object [Lieberman86; Gamma95].
InstrumentedSet 类被称为包装类，因为每个 InstrumentedSet 实例都包含(「包装」)另一个集合实例。这也称为装饰者模式 [Gamma95]，因为 InstrumentedSet 类通过添加插装来「装饰」一个集合。有时复合和转发的组合被不当地称为委托。严格来说，除非包装器对象将自身传递给包装对象，否则它不是委托 [Lieberman86; Gamma95]。
The disadvantages of wrapper classes are few. One caveat is that wrapper classes are not suited for use in callback frameworks, wherein objects pass selfreferences to other objects for subsequent invocations (“callbacks”). Because a wrapped object doesn’t know of its wrapper, it passes a reference to itself (this) and callbacks elude the wrapper. This is known as the SELF problem [Lieberman86]. Some people worry about the performance impact of forwarding method invocations or the memory footprint impact of wrapper objects. Neither turn out to have much impact in practice. It’s tedious to write forwarding methods, but you have to write the reusable forwarding class for each interface only once, and forwarding classes may be provided for you. For example, Guava provides forwarding classes for all of the collection interfaces [Guava].
包装类的缺点很少。一个需要注意的点是：包装类不适合在回调框架中使用，在回调框架中，对象为后续调用(「回调」)将自定义传递给其他对象。因为包装对象不知道它的包装器，所以它传递一个对它自己的引用（this），回调避开包装器。这就是所谓的「自用」问题。有些人担心转发方法调用的性能影响或包装器对象的内存占用影响。这两种方法在实践中都没有多大影响。编写转发方法很麻烦，但是你必须只为每个接口编写一次可复用的转发类，而且可能会为你提供转发类。例如，Guava 为所有的集合接口提供了转发类 [Guava]。
Inheritance is appropriate only in circumstances where the subclass really is a subtype of the superclass. In other words, a class B should extend a class A only if an “is-a” relationship exists between the two classes. If you are tempted to have a class B extend a class A, ask yourself the question: Is every B really an A?If you cannot truthfully answer yes to this question, B should not extend A. If the answer is no, it is often the case that B should contain a private instance of A and expose a different API: A is not an essential part of B, merely a detail of its implementation.
只有在子类确实是超类的子类型的情况下，继承才合适。换句话说，只有当两个类之间存在「is-a」关系时，类 B 才应该扩展类 a。如果你想让 B 类扩展 a 类，那就问问自己：每个 B 都是 a 吗？如果你不能如实回答是的这个问题，B 不应该扩展 a，如果答案是否定的，通常情况下，B 应该包含一个私人的实例，让不同的 API：不是 B 的一个重要组成部分，只是一个细节的实现。
There are a number of obvious violations of this principle in the Java platform libraries. For example, a stack is not a vector, so Stack should not extend Vector. Similarly, a property list is not a hash table, so Properties should not extend Hashtable. In both cases, composition would have been preferable.
在 Java 库中有许多明显违反这一原则的地方。例如，stack 不是 vector，因此 Stack 不应该继承 Vector。类似地，property 列表不是 hash 表，因此 Properties 不应该继承 Hashtable。在这两种情况下，复合都是可取的。
If you use inheritance where composition is appropriate, you needlessly expose implementation details. The resulting API ties you to the original implementation, forever limiting the performance of your class. More seriously,by exposing the internals you let clients access them directly. At the very least, it can lead to confusing semantics. For example, if p refers to a Properties instance, then p.getProperty(key) may yield different results from p.get(key): the former method takes defaults into account, while the latter method, which is inherited from Hashtable, does not. Most seriously, the client may be able to corrupt invariants of the subclass by modifying the superclass directly. In the case of Properties, the designers intended that only strings be allowed as keys and values, but direct access to the underlying Hashtable allows this invariant to be violated. Once violated, it is no longer possible to use other parts of the Properties API (load and store). By the time this problem was discovered, it was too late to correct it because clients depended on the use of non-string keys and values.
如果在复合适用的地方使用了继承，就会不必要地公开实现细节。生成的 API 将你与原始实现绑定在一起，永远限制了类的性能。更严重的是，通过公开内部组件，你可以让客户端直接访问它们。至少，它会导致语义混乱。例如，如果 p 引用了一个 Properties 类的实例，那么 p.getProperty(key) 可能会产生与 p.get(key) 不同的结果：前者考虑了默认值，而后者（从 Hashtable 继承而来）则不会。最严重的是，客户端可以通过直接修改超类来破坏子类的不变量。对于 Properties 类，设计者希望只允许字符串作为键和值，但是直接访问底层 Hashtable 允许违反这个不变性。一旦违反，就不再可能使用 Properties API 的其他部分（加载和存储）。当发现这个问题时，已经太晚了，无法纠正它，因为客户端依赖于非字符串键和值的使用。
There is one last set of questions you should ask yourself before deciding to use inheritance in place of composition. Does the class that you contemplate extending have any flaws in its API? If so, are you comfortable propagating those flaws into your class’s API? Inheritance propagates any flaws in the superclass’s API, while composition lets you design a new API that hides these flaws.
在决定使用继承而不是复合之前，你应该问自己最后一组问题。你打算扩展的类在其 API 中有任何缺陷吗？如果是这样，你是否愿意将这些缺陷传播到类的 API 中？继承传播超类 API 中的任何缺陷，而复合允许你设计一个新的 API 来隐藏这些缺陷。
To summarize, inheritance is powerful, but it is problematic because it violates encapsulation. It is appropriate only when a genuine subtype relationship exists between the subclass and the superclass. Even then, inheritance may lead to fragility if the subclass is in a different package from the superclass and the superclass is not designed for inheritance. To avoid this fragility, use composition and forwarding instead of inheritance, especially if an appropriate interface to implement a wrapper class exists. Not only are wrapper classes more robust than subclasses, they are also more powerful.
总而言之，继承是强大的，但是它是有问题的，因为它打破了封装。只有当子类和超类之间存在真正的子类型关系时才合适。即使这样，如果子类与超类不在一个不同的包中，并且超类不是为继承而设计的，继承也可能导致程序脆弱。为了避免这种缺陷，应使用复合和转发而不是继承，特别是如果存在实现包装器类的适当接口的话。包装类不仅比子类更健壮，而且更强大。
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- Previous Item（上一条目）：Item 17: Minimize mutability（减少可变性）
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