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Concept
Is-a
Summary
An is-a relationship is when one type of object 'is a' instance of another type of object.
For example, a cat 'is a' animal, but not vice versa. All cats are animals, but not all animals are cats.
The concept becomes important in object oriented programing, where 'is a' relationships are often used as a way to structure code - behaviour that are is relevant to all animals is defined on an animal class, whereas behaviour that is relevant only for cats is defined in a cat class. By defining the cat class as 'extending' the animal class, all cats 'inherit' the behaviour defined for animals, without the need to explicitly code that behaviour for cats.
In knowledge representation and ontology components, including for object-oriented programming and design (see object-oriented program architecture), is-a (is_a or is a) is a subsumptive relationship between abstractions (e.g. types, classes), wherein one class A is a subclass of another class B (and so B is a superclass of A).
In other words, type A is a subtype of type B when A's specification implies B's specification. That is, any object (or class) that satisfies A's specification also satisfies B's specification, because B's specification is weaker.
The is-a relationship is to be contrasted with the has-a (has_a or has a) relationship between types (classes); confusing the relations has-a and is-a is a common error when designing a model (e.g., a computer program) of the real-world relationship between an object and its subordinate. The is-a relationship may also be contrasted with the instance-of relationship between objects (instances) and types (classes): see Type–token distinction.
To summarize the relations, there are:
hyperonym–hyponym (supertype/superclass–subtype/subclass) relations between types (classes) defining a taxonomic hierarchy, where
for a subsumption relation: a hyponym (subtype, subclass) has a type-of (is-a) relationship with its hyperonym (supertype, superclass);
holonym–meronym (whole/entity/container–part/constituent/member) relations between types (classes) defining a possessive hierarchy, where
for an aggregation (i.
Official source
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