[W-Unit]

Alright, so I have a pure abstract class, Jar, with a few protected methods (nextMarble, hasMarble, and resetIteration) that need to be overridden in inheriting class VectorJar.

A different, public method in VectorJar (merge) will then need to call these methods.

Jar.cpp

class Jar
{
public:
        // ...
protected:
	struct MarbleIterationException { };

	virtual Marble nextMarble() const = 0;
	virtual bool hasMarble() const = 0;
	virtual void resetIteration() const = 0;
};

VectorJar.cpp

class VectorJar : Jar
{
	int iterIndex;
	rcvector<Marble> marbles;
	
	// ...

protected:
	Marble nextMarble() const
	{
		if (iterIndex < marbles.size())
			return marbles[iterIndex++];

		else
			throw MarbleIterationException();
	}

	bool hasMarble() const
	{
		return (iterIndex < marbles.size());
	}

	void resetIteration() const
	{
		iterIndex = 0;
	}

	// ...

public:
	void merge(const Jar& jar1, const Jar& jar2)
	{
		clear();

		if (jar1.marble_number() < jar2.marble_number()) return merge(jar2,jar1);

		jar1.resetIteration();
		while (jar1.hasMarble())
		{
			Marble m1 = jar1.nextMarble();
			jar2.resetIteration();
			while (jar2.hasMarble())
			{
				Marble m2 = jar2.nextMarble();
				if (m1 == m2) add(m1);
			}
		}

		jar1.resetIteration();
		jar2.resetIteration();
	}
};

The problem I am having is that the compiler won't let me call the nextMarble, resetIteration, and hasMarble methods from within the merge method. The compiler says it "cannot access private member declared in class Jar."
If I change the first line of VectorJar.cpp from class VectorJar : Jar to class VectorJar : public Jar, then the error changes so to "cannot access protected member declared in class Jar."
Since VectorJar inherits from Jar, it should be able to access Jar's protected methods, right? Otherwise, what is the point of a protected method?

Thanks!