Question

I have not used C++ for a really (really) long time and this question may be stupid but I could really use some help.

If my base class has a private data member and my derived class is derived publicly, the private members of the base class are NOT inherited. But, they can still be accessed via the inherited public functions. Eg:

class B{
int a,b;

public:
void SetA(int);
int GetA();
};

class D:public B{

public:
SetAAttribute(int x)
{ SetA(x); }

}

Now, my question is as follows:
Technically, the derived class objects do not have the ‘a’ attribute defined on them. In layman terms, I am basically setting an attribute on an entity when the attributes does not even exist in the first place. It seems unintuitive to imagine such a concept. Did I understand this correctly?

Any extra explanation or correction would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It’s not that the attribute doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just that it’s hidden from you. The base class methods can still access the base class members because they’re not hidden from each other.