Question

Possible Duplicate:
What are access specifiers? Should I inherit with private, protected or public?
Difference between private, public and protected inheritance in C++

To all you cpp experts,
In c++ inheritance,

class B : public A {
};

I am just curious why is the keyword public needed here? Does it mean something?

Answer 1

It means public members in A are inherited by B and are also public from B.

The alternatives are:

• protected – public members from A are made protected in B, others are kept the same.

• private – all members from A are made private in B.

The rules don’t apply to methods that are hidden or overriden.