In C++ there are three types of inheritance:
- public
- protected
- private
Any of these three types of inheritance can be modified with the virtual
keyword. In my experience interviewing candidates for c++ positions, I've learned that the average programmer does not know how these are used, or even what they mean. So I thought I would go over them here.
The three access modifiers public
, protected
and private
are analogous to the access modifieres used for class members.
-
public
-
When a base class is specified as
public
ie:class c : public base {};
the base class can be seen by anyone who has access to the derived class. That is, any members inherited frombase
can be seen by code accessingc
.
protected
-
When a base class is specified as
protected
ie:class c : protected base {};
the base class can only be seen by subclasses ofC
.
private
-
When a base class is specified as
private
ie:class c : private base {};
the base class can only be seen by the classC
itself.
Examples of how this plays out:
struct X {
public:
void A() {}
};
struct Y {
public:
void B() {}
};
struct Z {
public:
void C() {}
};
struct Q : public X, protected Y, private Z {
public:
void Test()
{
A(); // OK
B(); // OK
C(); // OK
}
};
struct R : public Q {
public:
void Test2()
{
A(); // OK
B(); // OK
C(); // NOT OK
Q t;
Y *y = &t // OK
Z *z = &t // NOT OK
}
};
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
Q t1;
t1.A(); // OK
t1.B(); // NOT OK
t1.C(); // NOT OK
R t2;
t2.A(); // OK
t2.B(); // NOT OK
t2.C(); // NOT OK
X *x = &t1; // OK
Y *y = &t1; // NOT OK
Z *z = &t1; // NOT OK
x = &t2; // OK
y = &t2; // NOT OK
z = &t2; // NOT OK
}
What about Virtual?
Oh right. Virtual is only useful when multiple inheritance is involved and the same class appears in the inheritance graph more than once. If the inheritance is declared as virtual
all instances of the class are merged into one sub object and that sub object is initialized once. If the class that appears multiple times in the inheritance graph is NOT declared virtual
one sub object is created for EACH instance of the class and the class is initialized multiple times.
Be careful! If the class is inherited sometimes as virtual and sometimes not, the virtual instances are merged and the non-virtual instances are not, giving you a mix of behavior.