Need help to build network class

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working a Network class. For the moment, I have a class containing the following functions :

Code:

---

class cNetwork
{
    cnetwork();
    cnetwork(int port);
    ~cnetwork();
    void send_to(char *buffer,int length);
    int receive_from(char *buf,int buf_size);
    void bind_to(void);
    void wait_connection(void);
};

---

I think it should be a good thing to separate the server functions of the generic ones ("send_to"/"receive_from") and I should add a "connect_to" one.

When I have a server, if I accept a connection, a new socket number is created, so I need to have 2 socket variable in the class. It's not needed when I have to use a client connection. So, I would like to build the following inheritance of class:

parent : cNetwork (containing the socket and receive_from / send_to functions)

childrens :
cNetwork_server (containing the bind, accept...)
cNetwork_client (containing the connect and other usefull functions to search the dns etc...)


This mean the cNetwork_server class need to access to the socket variable of the parent class. Is this a good practice to use ?
Can you see another way to do this ? Any advice ???

Here the code of the class to be sure everybody can understand what I would like to do:

Code:

---

class cNetwork
{
public:
    cNetwork();
    ~cNetwork();
    void send_to(char *buffer,int size);
    int receive_from(char *buffer,int size);
protected:
    int socket;
};

class cNetwork_server : cNetwork
{
    /* I must use the variable socket of the parent class withing the functions of this class */
    cNetwork_server();
    ~cNetwork_server();
    void bind_to();
    void wait_for_connection();
};

class cNetwork_client : cNetwork
{
    /* I must use the variable socket of the parent class withing the functions of this class */
    cNetwork_client();
    ~cNetwork_client();
    void connect_to();
};

---

thank you for your precious help!