about derived class access specifier

[tejashs]

Hello, i was reading this tutorial
http://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/inheritance/
where i found this piece of code

class CRectangle: public CPolygon {

what is the significance of the specifier public here. what would happen if i use private or protected?
can someone explain?

[HiteshVaghani1]

it'd because CRectangle can inherit all members(private, protected and public) of CPolygon and so CRectangle can use all...

[viliml]

Imagine that the public, protected and private were enumerated values, with public=1, protected=2, and private=3;
Then for each member of the base class, it's access specifier in the derived class would be max(inheritance_access_specifier, base_class_access_specifier)
So, if the inheritance acces level is private, everything is private. If it's protected, everything is protected or stricter, and if it's public, everything is as it was in the base class.

[tejashs]

got it thanks
which ever specifier is more strict will be considered.