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 (Click here for a personal note from Marshall Cline.) |
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Section 24:
| 24.1 | How do you express "private inheritance"? |
| 24.2 | How are "private inheritance" and "composition" similar? |
| 24.3 | Which should I prefer: composition or private inheritance? |
| 24.4 | Should I pointer-cast from a private derived class to its base class? |
| 24.5 | How is protected inheritance related to private inheritance? |
| 24.6 | What are the access rules with private and protected inheritance? |
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[24.4] Should I pointer-cast from a private derived class to its base class?
Generally, No.
From a member function or friend of a privately derived class, the relationship to the base class is known, and the upward conversion from PrivatelyDer* to Base* (or PrivatelyDer& to Base&) is safe; no cast is needed or recommended.
However users of PrivatelyDer should avoid this unsafe conversion, since it is based on a private decision of PrivatelyDer, and is subject to change without notice.