How to change the Private access specifier to Public in Derived Class

Light Poster
22Sep2010,16:26   #1
singhsan02's Avatar
Hi,
Suppose I have a base class with an Integer Variable as defined below.
Class Base{
public:
int a;
};

Now I derive privately a derived Class as
Class Derived : private Base{
};

Now int a will become Private in base class.

My question is how can I again change the access specifier of int a to Public in the derived class?

Thanks,
Sanjay
Go4Expert Founder
22Sep2010,23:12   #2
shabbir's Avatar
Code:
Class Derived : public Base{
should do it.

But why do you want to have members as public?
Light Poster
23Sep2010,11:11   #3
singhsan02's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by shabbir View Post
Code:
Class Derived : public Base{
should do it.

But why do you want to have members as public?
Hi,
I guess I was not clear what I want to achieve in my question earlier.

See using Private Inheritance I inherited integer a in to derived class.
Now the access specifier of int a in derived is Private.I again want to change the access specifier of int a in to say either public or protected in the derived class.
So the crux is How can I change the access specifier in a class from one type to another?

~Sanj
Go4Expert Founder
23Sep2010,13:28   #4
shabbir's Avatar
Now why do you want to be changing the access level of a variable in the middle of your running program?
Light Poster
23Sep2010,16:18   #5
singhsan02's Avatar
Right now I don't have a scenario for why I will need it.

Just wanted to know whether conceptually is it possible or not?

~sanj
Go4Expert Founder
24Sep2010,09:15   #6
shabbir's Avatar
No it is not possible.
Light Poster
24Sep2010,10:45   #7
singhsan02's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by shabbir View Post
No it is not possible.
Ok..Actually this was asked recently to me in an interview and I believe there is some trick to achieve this behaviour. I searched a lot for this but coudn't get anything.

Anyways.....
Go4Expert Founder
24Sep2010,11:17   #8
shabbir's Avatar
No there is no way as far as I know this can be done.
Mentor
2Oct2010,12:59   #9
xpi0t0s's Avatar
You should not do it, because if the program design requires that Derived is derived from a private Base then the intent of the design is that Base's members should be private within Derived, so if you need to circumvent that, then your design is broken. If you need Derived::a to be public then (a) derive it as public not private, or (b) add a public accessor function.

Code:
class Derived : private Base
{
public:
  int *get_a() { return &a; }
}
Newbie Member
15Dec2010,00:06   #10
scottu's Avatar
Code:
class Derived : private Base {
  public:
    Base::a;
};
should do the trick.