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Cannot access protected members of parent class.

seeflrx (3)
Good day

I have a question regarding classes and inheritance. I am a student, but the question does not relate to homework or an assignment. I am doing C++ data structures exercises, and I am still learning some of the more basic concepts.

I have a parent class:

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template<class T>
class linkedListType
{
public:

protected:
    int count;
    nodeType<T> *first;
    nodeType<T> *last;

private:

};


Derived class:
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#include "linkedListType.h"

template<class T>
class orderedLinkedList: public linkedListType<T>
{
public:
    void mergeList(orderedLinkedList<T> &list1, orderedLinkedList<t> &list2)
    {
       first = list1.first;
       ...
    }
private:
};


There is more code in my mergeList() function, but I included the line that is giving me problems. The error that my CodeBlocks compiler is giving me is that 'first' was not declared in this scope. Strangely enough, if I change it to this->first, the error disappears.
1. Why does it not recognise 'first'?
2. Why would this->first work at all? Is the 'this' object a smart pointer?

Thank you.
Peter87 (11175)
You can use this->first or linkedListType<T>::first or orderedLinkedList::first. I don't know exactly why this is necessary but it has something to do with the use of templates.
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