Inheritance question: Use parent's function on child's data?

[wolfv]

Inheritance question: How to inherit a parent's function and use it on the children's data?

The example below shows what I am trying to accomplish.
It does not work as is, but it works if the puts() function is moved to the child classes.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Parent
{
    public:
	void puts() { cout << " array[1]=" << array[1]; };
	// error: 'array' was not declared in this sope
};

class Child1: public Parent
{
    public:
	static const char array[];
};

class Child2: public Parent
{
    public:
	static const char array[];
};

Child1 obj1;
const char Child1::array[3] = {'a', 'b', 'c'};

Child2 obj2;
const char Child2::array[2] = {'1', '2'};

int main()
{
	obj1.puts();
	obj2.puts();
}

Thank you.

[Danny Toledo]

Can you make puts virtual in Parent and have each child class override it?

[wolfv]

Thanks for the quick response.

Overriding puts() is not an option because then there would be multiple copies to puts() to maintain.

I was looking for a way for the Child classes to inherit puts().

[wolfv]

I found a way to make the parent's puts() function accesses child's data.
This works:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Parent
{
    public:
	void puts();
	virtual char getElement(int)=0;
};

class Child1: public Parent
{
    public:
	static const char array[];
	char getElement(int index) { return array[index]; }
};

class Child2: public Parent
{
    public:
	static const char array[];
	char getElement(int index) { return array[index]; }
};

Child1 obj1;
const char Child1::array[3] = {'a', 'b', 'c'};

Child2 obj2;
const char Child2::array[2] = {'1', '2'};

void Parent::puts()
{
	cout << " element[1]=" << getElement(1);
};

int main()
{			// output:
	obj1.puts();	// element[1]=b
	obj2.puts();	// element[1]=2
}