When should base class members be declared protected?
A) When all clients should be able to access these members.
B) When these members are used only by member functions of this base class.
C) When these members should be available only to derived classes (and friends), but not to other clients.
D) The protected access specified should never be used.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Declaring base class members as protected ensures that they are available to derived classes and their friends, but not to other clients. This is useful for providing access to implementation details while still keeping them hidden from external clients. Option A is incorrect because making members accessible to all clients may compromise encapsulation. Option B is incorrect because even if the members are only used by the base class, they may still need to be accessed by derived classes. Option D is incorrect because there are valid use cases for using protected access.

When Should Base Class Members Be Declared Protected