C++ Primer Plus

Special Relationships Between Derived and Base Classes

A derived class has some special relationships with the base class. One, which you’ve just seen, is that a derived-class object can use base-class methods, provided that the methods are not private:

RatedPlayer rplayer1(1140, "Mallory", "Duck", true);rplayer1.Name();  // derived object uses base method

Two other important relationships are that a base-class pointer can point to a derived-class object without an explicit type cast and that a base-class reference can refer to a derived-class object without an explicit type cast:

RatedPlayer rplayer1(1140, "Mallory", "Duck", true);TableTennisPlayer & rt = rplayer;TableTennisPlayer * pt = &rplayer;rt.Name();   // invoke Name() with reference ...