All members of an inline namespace are treated as if they were part of its parent namespace, allowing specialization of functions and easing the process of versioning. This is a transitive property, if A contains B, which in turn contains C and both B and C are inline namespaces, C's members can be used as if they were on A.
namespace Program {
namespace Version1 {
int getVersion() { return 1; }
bool isFirstVersion() { return true; }
}
inline namespace Version2 {
int getVersion() { return 2; }
}
}
int version {Program::getVersion()}; // Uses getVersion() from Version2
int oldVersion {Program::Version1::getVersion()}; // Uses getVersion() from Version1
bool firstVersion {Program::isFirstVersion()}; // Does not compile when Version2 is added