Dynamic inheritance allows objects to change and evolve over time. Since base classes provide properties and attributes for objects, changing base classes changes the properties and attributes of a class. A previous example was a window changing into an icon and then back again, which involves changing a base class between a window and icon class.

More specifically, dynamic inheritance refers to the ability to add, delete, or change parents from objects (or classes) at run-time. Actors, CLOS, and Smalltalk provide dynamic inheritance in some form or other. Single hierarchy systems, such as Self, provide dynamic inheritance in the form of delegation [Ungar 87].

See also [Kim 89, chs 1, 3] for a discussion and [Coplien 92] for some implementation discussion in C++.   _{Your Comment}