Core C++ A Software Engineering Approach

Scope Rules and Name Resolution Under Inheritance

In C++, class scope can be viewed as nested under derivation. From this point of view, the scope of a derived class is enclosed by the scope of its base class.

According to the general theory of nested scopes, whatever is defined in the inner scope is invisible in the outer, more global scope. Conversely, whatever is defined in the outer scope is visible in the inner, more local scope. In the next example, variable x is defined in the outer function scope, and variable y is defined in the inner block scope. It is appropriate to access the variable x in the inner scope. It is futile to access the variable y from the outer scope.

 void foo() { int x; // outer scope: equivalent to base class { int ...