Wrap-Up

In this chapter, you learned how to use the const_cast operator to remove the const qualification of a variable. We then showed how to use namespaces to ensure that every identifier in a program has a unique name and explained how they can help resolve naming conflicts. You saw several operator keywords for programmers whose keyboards do not support certain characters used in operator symbols, such as !, &, ^, ~ and |. Next, we showed how the mutable storage-class specifier enables a programmer to indicate that a data member should always be modifiable, even when it appears in an object that is currently being treated as a const. We also showed the mechanics of using pointers to class members and the ->* and .* operators. Finally, we introduced multiple inheritance and discussed problems associated with allowing a derived class to inherit the members of several base classes. As part of this discussion, we demonstrated how virtual inheritance can be used to solve those problems.