What is a conversion constructor?

A constructor that accepts one argument of a different type.


What is the difference between a copy constructor and an overloaded assignment operator?

A copy constructor constructs a new object by using the content of the argument object. An overloaded assignment operator assigns the contents of an existing object to another existing object of the same class.


When should you use multiple inheritance?

There are three acceptable answers: "Never," "Rarely," and "When the problem domain cannot be accurately modeled any other way."


Explain the ISA and HASA class relationships. How would you implement each in a class design?

A specialized class "is" a specialization of another class and, therefore, has the ISA relationship with the other class. An Employee ISA Person. This relationship is best implemented with inheritance. Employee is derived from Person. A class may have an instance of another class. For example, an employee "has" a salary, therefore the Employee class has the HASA relationship with the Salary class. This relationship is best implemented by embedding an object of the Salary class in the Employee class.


When is a template a better solution than a base class?

When you are designing a generic class to contain or otherwise manage objects of other types, when the format and behavior of those other types are unimportant to their containment or management, and particularly when those other types are unknown (thus, the genericity) to the designer of the container or manager class.


What is a mutable member?

One that can be modified by the class even when the object of the class or the member function doing the modification is const.


What is an explicit constructor?

A conversion constructor declared with the explicit keyword. The compiler does not use an explicit constructor to implement an implied conversion of types. It’s purpose is reserved explicitly for construction.