The protected keyword specifies access to class members in the member-list up to the next access specifier (public or private) or the end of the class definition. Class members declared as protected can be used only by the following: Member functions of the class that originally declared these members. Friends of the class that originally declared these members. Classes derived with public or protected access from the class that originally declared these members. Direct privately derived classes that also have private access to protected members. When preceding the name of a base class, the protected keyword specifies that the public and protected members of the base class are protected members of its derived classes. Protected members are not as private as private members, which are accessible only to members of the class in which they are declared, but they are not as public as public members, which are accessible in any function. Protected members that are also declared as static are accessible to any friend or member function of a derived class. Protected members that are not declared as static are accessible to friends and member functions in a derived class only through a pointer to, reference to, or object of the derived class.

保护(c++)

当然，看看受保护的成员变量问题。建议使用private作为默认值(就像c++类一样)来减少耦合。受保护的成员变量总是一个坏主意，受保护的成员函数可以用于例如模板方法模式。

可以从派生类访问受保护的成员。私立学校则不行。

class Base {

private: 
  int MyPrivateInt;
protected: 
  int MyProtectedInt;
public:
  int MyPublicInt;
};

class Derived : Base
{
public:
  int foo1()  { return MyPrivateInt;} // Won't compile!
  int foo2()  { return MyProtectedInt;} // OK  
  int foo3()  { return MyPublicInt;} // OK
};‌‌

class Unrelated 
{
private:
  Base B;
public:
  int foo1()  { return B.MyPrivateInt;} // Won't compile!
  int foo2()  { return B.MyProtectedInt;} // Won't compile
  int foo3()  { return B.MyPublicInt;} // OK
};

至于“最佳实践”，则视情况而定。如果有人想要从您现有的类中派生一个新类，并且需要访问内部成员，那么将它们设置为Protected，而不是Private。如果它们是私有的，那么您的类就很难轻易继承。

私有成员只能在声明它的类中访问，而受保护成员可以在声明它的类中与它继承的类一起访问。

私有成员只能从类内部访问，受保护成员可以在类和派生类中访问。这是面向对象语言中继承的一个特性。

在c++中可以有私有、受保护和公共继承，这将决定哪些派生类可以在继承层次结构中访问。例如，c#只有公共继承。

MFC偏爱protected的原因是因为它是一个框架。您可能想要子类化MFC类，在这种情况下，需要一个受保护的接口来访问类的一般用途不可见的方法。