Objectives

In this chapter you’ll:

• Learn qhat inheritance is and how it promotes software reuse.

• Understand the notions of base classes and derived classes and the relationships between them.

• Use the protected member access specifier.

• Understand the use of constructors and destructors in inheritance hierarchies.

• Learn the order in which constructors and destructors are called in inheritance hierarchies.

• Understand the differences between public, protected and private inheritance.

• Use inheritance to customize existing software.

Outline

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Base Classes and Derived Classes

11.3 Relationship between Base and Derived Classes

11.3.1 Creating and Using a CommissionEmployee Class

11.3.2 Creating a BasePlusCommissionEmployee Class Without Using Inheritance

11.3.3 Creating a CommissionEmployee–BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy

11.3.4 CommissionEmployee–BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy Using protected Data

11.3.5 CommissionEmployee–BasePlusCommissionEmployee Inheritance Hierarchy Using private Data

11.4 Constructors and Destructors in Derived Classes

11.5 public, protected and private Inheritance

11.6 Software Engineering with Inheritance

11.7 Wrap-Up