Chapter 9Class Inheritance and Virtual Functions
- How inheritance fits into object-oriented programming
- How you define a new class in terms of an existing class
- How you use the
protectedkeyword - How a class can be a friend to another class
- How to use virtual functions
- What pure virtual functions are
- What an abstract class is
- When you should use a virtual destructor
- How to define a conversion operator in a class
- What a nested class is
You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter on the Download Code tab at www.wrox.com/go/beginningvisualc. The code is in the Chapter 9 download and individually named according to the names throughout the chapter.
OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING BASICS
As you have seen, a class is a data type that you define to suit your own application requirements. Classes define the objects to which your program relates. You program the solution to a problem in terms of the objects that are specific to the problem, using operations that work directly with those objects. You can define a class to represent something abstract, such as a complex number, which is a mathematical concept, or a truck, which is decidedly physical (especially if you run into one on the highway). So, as well as being a data type, a class can also define a set of real-world objects of a particular kind, at least to the degree necessary to solve a given problem.
You can think of a class as defining ...
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