What is an abstract class? Give an example and explain how it works.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Sometimes, a parent class is so general that you never intend to create any specific instances of the class. For example, you might never create an object that is "just" an Employee; each Employee is more specifically a SalariedEmployee, an HourlyEmployee, or a ContractEmployee. A class such as Employee that you create only to extend from, but not to instantiate objects from, is an abstract class. An abstract class is one from which you cannot create any concrete objects, but from which you can inherit. Abstract classes usually have one or more empty abstract methods. You use the keyword abstract when you declare an abstract class.