What advantage does inheritance provide in programming?

Inheritance is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming that allows a new class, often referred to as a subclass or derived class, to inherit attributes and methods from an existing class, known as a superclass or base class. This capability is primarily advantageous as it facilitates code reusability and establishes a hierarchical relationship between classes.

By enabling new classes to extend existing ones, inheritance allows developers to create a new class that can leverage the functionality of the existing class without needing to rewrite code. This leads to a cleaner code structure, as common functionality can be maintained in a single base class and shared among various subclasses. In practical terms, if a method or property is needed in multiple classes, it can be defined once in the base class, and all subclasses will inherit that capability. This not only saves time in the development process but also reduces the likelihood of errors since there is a single place to manage and update that shared code.

The other options describe important concepts related to programming, such as data privacy and code documentation, but they do not directly reflect the unique advantages provided by inheritance. For example, while enforced data privacy can occur through mechanisms like encapsulation, it is not inherently a result of inheritance itself. Similarly, enhancing code documentation is beneficial for understanding the code