C++ Inheritance Access

Last Updated : 9 Nov, 2025

Inheritance access defines how the access specifiers (public, protected, private) of a base class are treated in the derived class.

It controls the visibility and accessibility of base class members in the derived class and to outside code.
The type of inheritance (public, protected, private) determines how the base class members are inherited.

Types of Inheritance Access

Public: Base class members retain their access levels in the derived class (public → public, protected → protected).
Protected: Base class members become protected in the derived class, regardless of original access (public/protected → protected).
Private: Base class members become private in the derived class, restricting access outside the derived class.

Accessibility	Public Members	Protected Members	Private Memebers
Base Class	Yes	Yes	Yes
Derived Class	Yes	Yes	No

C++ public Inheritance

In this example, public inheritance is demonstrated. Since private and protected members will not be directly accessed from main( ) so we have had to create functions name getPVT( ) to access the private variable and getProt( ) to access the protected variable from the inherited class.

Output

Private = 1
Protected = 2
Public = 3

C++ Protected Inheritance

We know that protected members can only be accessed from the Derived class. These members cannot be directly accessed from outside the class. So we cannot use getPVT() from ProtectedDerived. This is also why we need to create getPub() function in the Derived class in order to access the pub variable.

Output

Private = 1
Protected = 2
Public = 3

Note: There is still a way to access the Private members of base class. Since Base has a public member function that can access its private member variables, we can create a call to this member function (inherited as Protected member function in derived class) to access the Private inherited variable of Base class.

C++ Private Inheritance

We know that private members cannot be accessed from the Derived class. These members cannot be directly accessed from outside the class. So we cannot use getPVT() from PrivateDerived. So we need to create the getPub() function in PrivateDerived in order to access the pub variable.

Output