C++ How to Program, 10/e

11.2 Base Classes and Derived Classes

Figure 11.1 lists several simple examples of base classes and derived classes. Base classes tend to be more general and derived classes tend to be more specific.

Fig. 11.1 Inheritance examples.

Base class	Derived classes
Student	GraduateStudent, UndergraduateStudent
Shape	Circle, Triangle, Rectangle, Sphere, Cube
Loan	CarLoan, HomeImprovementLoan, MortgageLoan
Employee	Faculty, Staff
Account	CheckingAccount, SavingsAccount

Because every derived-class object is an object of its base class, and one base class can have many derived classes, the set of objects represented by a base class typically is larger than the set of objects represented by any of its derived classes. For example, ...