hi, i have problem with protected members, for example: class A { protected: int var; }; class B : public A { void function(A *a) { this->var = 0;// correct a->var = 0;// WRONG!!! } } Why can''t child class access the protected member in the parent class, if it''s not his own parent? How can I get this code work, without using public member variable or functions?

well, you can''t ...
the purpose of protected members is to be accessed by children not by other members of the family, like cousins etc ))

so you''d better make a int A::Getvar() and a int A::Setvar() methods to do what you wanna do ...

quote:
Why can''t child class access the protected member in the parent class, if it''s not his own parent?

It might not be the parent of a ''B'', it could really be a ''C'', e.g.

B* pB = new B;B->(pC); 

The class ''B'' shouldn''t be able to change a C just because it''s a subclass of ''A''. It only has access to the private and protected parts of other B''s. So either change your code to accept a B or use some other way to access the data.

You can break the type checking by forcing a cast inside the B function, but if you start doing stuff like you might as well not be using C++.