Thread: Accessing a protected member declared in parent class

Hi,

I have a base class character, a child class pacman, and a file called manager.cpp which contains main and serves to manage the characters in the game while the game is in progress.

In Character.h I have declared desiredDirection and its mutators and accessors as follows:

Code:

protected:
	void setDirection(int newDirection);
	const int getDirection() const;
	void setDesired(int newDirection); //set desired direction
	const int getDesired() const;
                      ...

private:
                      ...
	int direction; //current direction
	int desiredDirection;
                      ...

In manager.cpp I have declared pacman to be a global variable as follows (I know global variables are naughty but I haven't thought of the best way to manage the characters yet so its temporary):

Code:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <string> //might be able to remove later - here for debugging

#include "Map.h"
#include "Pacman.h"
#include "Ghost.h"

using namespace std;

Pacman * pacman;

in the same file (manager.cpp), I need to access pacman's desiredDirection and I do it as follows:

Code:

void Timer(int extra)
{
	if (pacman->getDesired() == 4)
		pacman->move();
	else
	{
		pacman->move();
		pacman->setDesired(pacman->move(pacman->getDesired()));
	}
	glutTimerFunc(30,Timer,0);
}

before I had this working by having desiredDirection as a global variable in Manager.cpp but I'm trying to avoid using global variables. When I compile my program I get:

manager.cpp(43) : error C2248: 'Character::getDesired' : cannot access protected member declared in class 'Character'
character.h(38) : see declaration of 'Character::getDesired'
character.h(15) : see declaration of 'Character'

I'm guessing the only way I can use the getters and setters is if I used them within pacman's implementation file? So, if I need access in manager.cpp, what would be the best way to do it?

Your getters and setters shouldn't be protected, but public. (If they are protected, then no one can access them, which means they are extremely pointless.)

thanks I got so lost in playing with inheritance within the pacman class that I lost sight of the fact that it's totally normal to have mutators and accessors be public haha. thanks for bringing me back to earth :P