Inheritance in C++? - c++

Question

I'm trying to learn about inheritance. I've tried to make a class called ProductionWorker that is derived from Employee. I'm trying to follow the model given by this website. However, it seems like the inheritance isn't working because I get errors in the main function saying that name, number, and date are not set in this scope. What is wrong with the code?
Program.cpp:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include "employee.h"
using namespace std;
int main() {
ProductionWorker worker;
cout<<"What is the employee name?"<<endl;
cin>>name;
worker.setName(name);
cout<<"What is the employee number?"<<endl;
cin>>number;
worker.setNumber(number);
cout<<"What is the employee hire date?"<<endl;
cin>>date;
worker.setDate(date);
cout<<"Employee Information:"<<endl;
cout<<worker.getName()<<endl;
cout<<worker.getNumber()<<endl;
cout<<worker.getDate()<<endl;
cout<<worker.getShift()<<endl;
cout<<worker.getPayRate()<<endl;
return 0;
}
employee.h:
#ifndef EMPLOYEE_H_
#define EMPLOYEE_H_
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Employee{
protected:
string name;
int number;
string date;
public:
Employee(string a="", int b=0, string c=""){
name=a;
number=b;
date=c;
}
void setName(string);
void setNumber(int);
void setDate(string);
string getName();
int getNumber();
string getDate();
};
class ProductionWorker: public Employee{
private:
int shift;
double pay;
public:
ProductionWorker(int d=1, double e=10.0, string a="", int b=0, string c=""):Employee(a, b, c){
shift=d;
pay=e;
}
int getShift();
double getPayRate();
};
employee.cpp:
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include "employee.h"
using namespace std;
//EMPLOYEE
void Employee::setName(string a){
name=a;
}
void Employee::setNumber(int b){
number=b;
}
void Employee::setDate(string c){
date=c;
}
string Employee::getName(){
return name;
}
int Employee::getNumber(){
return number;
}
string Employee::getDate(){
return date;
}
//PRODUCTION WORKER
int ProductionWorker::getShift(){
return shift;
}
double ProductionWorker::getPayRate(){
return pay;
}

Answer 1

I think that you should declare name, number and date before you use it, in Program.cpp. You try to get input into symbol that compiler doesn't know yet.

Answer 2

Your error is nothing to do with inheritance:
int main() {
ProductionWorker worker;
cout<<"What is the employee name?"<<endl;
cin>>name;
You're reading into a variable called name but no such variable is in scope (i.e. declared in the main() function itself or globally). Though name is a member of the Employee class, you cannot use it as such in this way. (Consider: how would the compiler know which instance of Employee that you were wanting to set the name of? And, of course, if you could read directly into the instance variable, there would be no need to call worker.setName(...) afterwards).
You should just declare name as a local variable, by specifying its type:
int main() {
string name;
ProductionWorker worker;
cout<<"What is the employee name?"<<endl;
cin>>name;
Now cin>>name; reads into the local variable name that is declared within the main() function. (I took the liberty of fixing your indentation). In a similar way, you need declarations for date and number.

Answer 3

You haven't declared the variables that cin needs to read into.
Just add
string name;
int number;
string date;
At the top of function main.