Beginning C++ Programming

Virtual methods

A base class pointer or reference giving access to just the base class functionality, and makes sense, but it is restrictive. If you have a car class that provides the interface for a car, a gas pedal, and brake to alter the speed, a steering wheel and reverse gear to alter the direction-you can derive from this class various other car types: a sports car, an SUV, or a family sedan. When you press the gas pedal, you expect the car to have the torque of an SUV, if your car is an SUV, or the speed of a sports car if it's a sports car. Similarly, if you call the accelerate method on a car pointer and that pointer is to a suv, then you expect to get method to reflect the torque of the SUV, and if the car pointer points to a