Question

Can you provide an example of using protected access specifier in C++?

Answer 1

Certainly! In the following example, we have a base class called "Shape" with a protected member variable "color". The "color" variable is accessible within the class and can also be accessed by derived classes.

class Shape {
protected:
    std::string color;
};

class Circle : public Shape {
public:
    void setColor(const std::string& c) {
        color = c;
    }

    void printColor() {
        std::cout << "Color: " << color << std::endl;
    }
};

int main() {
    Circle c;
    c.setColor("Red");  // Accessing protected member through derived class
    c.printColor();     // Accessing public member function
    return 0;
}