Inheritance means getting something from the parent. In C++ also, inheritance means the same. But who is the parent? |
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Remember that classes and objects are a key feature in C++. When we talk of inheritance in C++, we talk of classes. We will have the parent class and the derived class. The derived class inherits all properties of the parent class. |
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The parent class is known as the base class. All the classes that arise from the base class are known as derived classes. These derived classes inherit all non-private parts of the base class. |
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When any data is made private in a class, it can be accessed ONLY by member functions of that class. A derived class CANNOT access the private area of its base class. |
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Let’s take a look at the syntax for making a derived class. |
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Syntax : |
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The syntax is easy. Just create the base class as you normally would. Then when you want to create the derived class, just start with the following line: |
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class d1 : public b1 |
{ |
body of d1; |
}; |
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where d1 is the name of the derived class and b1 is the name of the base class. |
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Out put of the program |
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We think you might have just one question. What’s the meaning of protected? Well, as We said earlier, private data of a base class cannot be inherited by it’s derived class. |
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So the question arises as to how to make some data available to both the base and derived class? |
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The answer is to make use of protected keyword. |
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Protected data will be inherited by the derived classes. |
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The rest of the program is as normal. |