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(C++) Private inheritance

Private inheritance is an uncommonly used (of three) modes of inheritance. Private inheritance denotes a 'is-implemented-in-terms-of' relationship between derived class and base class [0] . Private inheritance is usually inferior to composition [0] .

There are no real-world examples for private inheritance : it means nothing during software design, only during software implementation [0] . In the example below Widget is not a kind of Timer, but it uses some of the features of Timer.

struct Widget : private Timer //A derived class, private inheritance

{

};

References

[0]   Scott Meyers . Effective C++ (3rd edition).ISBN:0-321-33487-6. Item 39: 'Use private inheritance judiciously'.

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