Re: why private virtual function?

From:
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.language
Date:
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:03:21 +0100
Message-ID:
<13ts9aftjp24nba@corp.supernews.com>
* Abhishek Padmanabh:

On Mar 17, 12:15 pm, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:

* Abhishek Padmanabh:

On Mar 16, 1:46 am, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:

Example:
<code>
class Base
{
private:
     void foo() {}
public:
     void bar() {}
};
struct Mixin { void foo() {} };
class Derived: public Base, public Mixin
{
public:
     void bar() { foo(); } // Uh oh.
};
int main()
{
     Derived().bar();}
</code>
In each specific case there are simple workarounds, e.g. here a
'using'-declaration or qualification, but IMHO there's something not quite right
about the scheme.

using declaration does not work here and rightly so. Something that is
private as declared by the "owner"/the base class itself should not be
easy enough to break into to make it visible. If the derived class
opts to take it (inherit) privately, using works and probably rightly
so as it is the decision of the derived class about what it wants.
Still, using declaration looks like a hack to circumvent the bad
decisions already taken or just a way to reuse code causing additional
coupling apart from what inheritance already causes.

I'm sorry, your comment is not meaningful to me, and it's also technically
incorrect.

It seems you have failed to understand the code, as well as what it was all about.

Try to compile the code, for example.


Sorry if I was not clear. I tried compiling comeau online. I get the
following error:

"ComeauTest.c", line 13: error: "Derived::foo" is ambiguous
       void bar() { foo(); } // Uh oh.
                    ^
which is a little strange and probably mis-leading. When you uncomment
the derivation from Mixin as below (and additionally even put a using
declaration for Base::foo):

class Base
{
private:
     void foo() {}
public:
     void bar() {}
};
//struct Mixin { void foo() {} };
class Derived: public Base//, public Mixin
{
public:
     using Base::foo;
     void bar() { foo(); } // Uh oh.
};
int main()
{
     Derived().bar();
}

It fails to compile with below errors:

"ComeauTest.c", line 12: error: function "Base::foo" (declared at line
4) is
          inaccessible
       using Base::foo;
                   ^

"ComeauTest.c", line 13: error: function "Base::foo" (declared at line
4) is
          inaccessible
       void bar() { foo(); } // Uh oh.

Hope this clears what I was pointing out (by me):


Well OK. You altered the code to try to do something silly, and that failed.
It's like, darn Microsoft, yer Windoze programming examples are all rotten cause
they don't work for me when I change 'em in willy-nilly ways, especially the
examples showing incorrect ways to do to things don't work for me.

Proper use of a using-declaration to make the code do what it was "meant" to
would be

   using Mixin::foo;

I leave it as an exercise for the student (heh, :-)) to put that in a place
where it makes the code compile and do what it was "meant" to.

Cheers, & hth.,

- Alf

--
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