Question

I have a base class ‘A’ which has a subclass ‘B’ which has a subclass ‘C’ which has a subclass ‘D’.

I want D to call ‘A’s constructor,

D(int x,int y):A(x,y){};

but I am getting the error message:
error C2614: ‘D’ : illegal member initialization: ‘A’ is not a base or member.

D can call any of ‘C’s constructors fine but that is not what I want.
Any help would be super appreciated.

Answer 1

As Mark Ransom’s answer states, a derived class is only allowed to call its base class’ constructor.

In your case, you can solve the problem by passing along the constructor arguments to D down the inheritance hierarchy until A‘s constructor is called by B with those arguments.

Another option is to create a protected function, say A::init( args ) that can be called by D directly.