Polymorphism

Polymorphism is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming (OOP) that allows objects of different types to be treated as objects of a common base type. The term "polymorphism" comes from the Greek words "poly," meaning many, and "morph," meaning form. There are two main types of polymorphism: compile-time (or static) polymorphism and runtime (or dynamic) polymorphism.

Same attribute names existing in multiple classes is not polymorphism.

When dealing with polymorphism, we often just analyze methods.

One type of Polymorphism called Overloading is not a concept that is available in Python. More info here.

The two main types of polymorphism in Python is:

1. Different Classes, Same Named Methods, same -or- different behaviour.

2. Overriding & Inheritance (Next Page)

Basic Method Polymorphism

# Polymorphism Example

class Dog:
    def sound(self):
        print("Bark!")

class Cat:
    def sound(self):
        print("Meow~")
        
class Bird:
    def sound(self):
        print("Peep.")

If we examine the 3 simple classes we made of Dog, Cat, and Bird, they all share a common method called sound().

However, the behaviour of the method is different as a dog barks, a cat meows, and a bird peeps.

Methods showing polymorphism can differ by their arguments of the method and/or by their output/returned value of the method.