i camed across a nice C++ question which shows the final class principle (as I read here: http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/Cpp/cpp_mfc/stl/article.php/c4143/ it seems that the final class specifier exist in Java) 1. A class that is not derived from a class nor is intended to have any class derived from it is an example of what type of class? A. A concrete class B. An abstract class C. A base class D. A virtual class E. A final class A final class is a class from which you dont derive (if you try to, the objects of the derived classes cant be constructed since the compiler will complain about this). So how can you design such class ? In C++ there is no keyword (final) to declare a class as non-inheritable as in Java. But then C++ has its own features which you may exploit to get the same behaviour. Basically it uses concepts of private constructor and friend class. For example, lets try to create a class called CFinal. class CFinal { // member data ... } We want to be able to use this class...

the name hidding seems to be pretty compiler specific unfortunately. for example: struct A { int x; }; struct B: A { int x; }; struct C: A, B { void f() { x = 0; } }; int main() { C i; i.f(); } here http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/comphelp/v8v101/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.xlcpp8a.doc/language/ref/cplr138.htm it says that "The assignment x = 0 in function C::f() is not ambiguous because the declaration B::x has hidden A::x." when i see this I was confused, what the hell; indeed, B::x hiddens A::x but since i is of C type, both B::x and A::x are available to C. i just put this code in Visual C++ 2003 and it gives (of course) the compile error: e:\Projects\test2\test2\test2.cpp(15): error C2385: ambiguous access of 'x' in 'C' could be the 'x' in base 'A::x' or the 'x' in base 'B::x' now, i bet that there are many things like this, compiler specific (the C++ ref from the link is for the IBM compiler); and this makes life har...

there is a thing called name dominance in C++. consider this: class A { public: int f() { printf("\nA::f()"); return 1; } }; class B : virtual public A { public: void f() { printf("\nB::f()"); } // hides the int A::f() }; class C : virtual public A { }; class D : public B, public C { }; the hierarchy is this: A B C D and D has only one copy of A in memory (beacuse B and C inherits virtual from A) now: D d; d.f(); f() is not ambigous because void B::f() hides int A::f(). d.f() will get B:f() called because D derives from B which hides the A::f(). Note that this is not ambigous beacause the A is virtual inherited in B and C and this makes that the d object to contain only one instance of A within it. if, for example, B or C will not have virtual inherited from A (either one of them or both) this will mean that d will have 2 A objects within it. now, consider this case: C *d = new D; d->f(); d->f() will get A:f() called. Why is that stays in the mechanism of call...

consider this: class A { public: void f(); void f(int x); } class B : public A { public: void f(); // hides all A::f() overloads } you have an object B b; and you want to call the f(int x) b.f(1); normally you would think that since B inherits A, it inherits all the A functions, which is true, but not when for overloading. the name f() declared in B class will override any base names. this includes the following case: class A1 { public: void f(); } class B1 : public A1 { public: int f; // hides all A1 'f'names } if you try to write the call: b1.f(); you will get a compile error as within a class, the names in a inheritance tree shoule be unique; if you want to preserve the is-a relationship(a derived class should access all public inherited base class functionality) then you need to declare in the derived class the base functions by using 'using' declarator: class B : public A {public: void f(); // hides all A 'f'names using A::f; //OK, now we have the A::f(int ...

here is a nice article about how vtables work its good coz it goes into asm language and explains whats really goin on http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/0300/c/ if u find any similar article on this subject, pls reply here.