Describe the purpose of the items after the colon (:) in this code.

Question

In the code for HourlyEmployee that is derived from Employee, the constructor code appears
```
HourlyEmployee::
HourlyEmployee(string theName,
string theNumber,
double theWageRate,
double theHours
)
: Employee(theName, theNumber),
wageRate(theWageRate),
hours(theHours)
{
// deliberately empty
}
```

Answer 1

The call, Employee(theName, theNumber), invokes the base class constructor to initialize the data members in the members of HourlyEmployee that are inherited from the base class Employee. The next two items, wageRate(theWageRate) and hours(theHours) are initializers for the data members wageRate and hours in the derived class.