Object Oriented Design Interview

oop

Solution

Well, here's one good one that I came up with - utilizing OOP overriding, subclass and superclass:

namespace Animals{

    // base class Animal
    class Animal{

     public void eat(Food f){

     }

    }


    class Carnivore extends Animal{

      public void eat(Meat f){

      }

    }

    class Herbivore extends Animal{

      public void eat(Plant f){

      }

    }

    class Omnivore extends Animal{

      public void eat(Food f){

      }
    }

}

namespace Food{

    // base class Food
    class Food{

    }

    class Meat extends Food{

    }

    class Plant extends Food{

    }

}

I create subclasses Herbivore, Carnivore and Omnivore from the superclass Animal and override the `eat` method with the type of food that it can actually eat.

So:

Plant grass = new Plant();
Herbivore deer = new Herbivore();
deer.eat(grass); // ok

Plant grass2 = new Plant();
Carnivore tiger = new Carnivore();
tiger.eat(grass2); // not ok.

Meat deer2 = new Meat();
tiger.eat(deer2); // ok

Well, the final problem is that, when you specify that `deer` is a `Herbivore`, you can't make it a `Meat` for `tiger` to eat. However at the end of the day, this should be sufficient for solving the interview problem whilst not putting the interviewer to sleep.

Problem

Original source