Question

Derived class function cannot access even the public members of the base class when the access specifier is private. But how is it that the function ‘xyz‘ of my derived class able to call ‘showofb‘?
I even tried it by calling the function ‘showofb‘ in the constructor of C. In both cases it works.
How is it able to call the function ‘showofb‘ ?

class B  
{  
    public:  
    B()  
    {  
        cout<<":B:"<<endl;  
    }  
    void showofb()  
    {  
        cout<<"show of b"<<endl;  
    }  
};

class C : private B  
{
public:  
   C()  
   {  
        cout<<":C:"<<endl;  
   }  
   void xyz()  
   {  
        showofb();  
   }  
};  

int main()  
{  
    C c1;  
    c1.xyz();  
}    

Answer 1

B::showofb() is a public function. So it can be called by C. If you modify B to make showofb private, C will no longer be able to call it.

The private inheritance means that all public and protected members of B are inherited as private by C. So C can still call public and protected members of B, but any classes derived from C will not be able to call members of B.