Inheriting constructors

If your compiler supports C++11 standard, there is a constructor inheritance using using (pun intended). For more see Wikipedia C++11 article. You write:

class A
{
    public: 
        explicit A(int x) {}
};

class B: public A
{
     using A::A;
};

This is all or nothing - you cannot inherit only some constructors, if you write this, you inherit all of them. To inherit only selected ones you need to write the individual constructors manually and call the base constructor as needed from them.

Historically constructors could not be inherited in the C++03 standard. You needed to inherit them manually one by one by calling base implementation on your own.

For templated base classes, refer to this example:

using std::vector;
    
template<class T>
class my_vector : public vector<T> {
    public:
    using vector<T>::vector; ///Takes all vector's constructors
    /* */
};

Constructors are not inherited. They are called implicitly or explicitly by the child constructor.

The compiler creates a default constructor (one with no arguments) and a default copy constructor (one with an argument which is a reference to the same type). But if you want a constructor that will accept an int, you have to define it explicitly.

class A
{
public: 
    explicit A(int x) {}
};

class B: public A
{
public:
    explicit B(int x) : A(x) { }
};

UPDATE: In C++11, constructors can be inherited. See Suma's answer for details.

You have to explicitly define the constructor in B and explicitly call the constructor for the parent.

B(int x) : A(x) { }

or

B() : A(5) { }

Here is how I make the derived classes "inherit" all the parent's constructors. I find this is the most straightforward way, since it simply passes all the arguments to the constructor of the parent class.

class Derived : public Parent {
public:
  template <typename... Args>
  Derived(Args&&... args) : Parent(std::forward<Args>(args)...) 
  {

  }
};

Or if you would like to have a nice macro:

#define PARENT_CONSTRUCTOR(DERIVED, PARENT)                    \
template<typename... Args>                                     \
DERIVED(Args&&... args) : PARENT(std::forward<Args>(args)...)

class Derived : public Parent
{
public:
  PARENT_CONSTRUCTOR(Derived, Parent)
  {
  }
};

derived class inherits all the members(fields and methods) of the base class, but derived class cannot inherit the constructor of the base class because the constructors are not the members of the class. Instead of inheriting the constructors by the derived class, it only allowed to invoke the constructor of the base class

class A
{
    public: 
        explicit A(int x) {}
};

class B: public A
{
       B(int x):A(x);
};

int main(void)
{
    B *b = new B(5);
    delete b;
}