Definition Of Friend Classes

An ordinary function that is not the member function of a class has no privilege to access the private data members but the friend function does have the capability to access any private data members.

Definition of friend classes. Be careful when using friend functions and classes because it allows the friend function or class to violate encapsulation. A friend can be a function function template or member function or a class or class. A person who you know well and who you like a lot but who is usually not a member of your. So classb has access to the members of classa.

The declaration of the friend function is very simple. Since classb is a friend class we can create objects of classa inside of classb. Here classb is a friend class of classa. Noun one attached to another by affection or esteem.

Even though the prototypes for friend functions appear in the class definition friends are not member functions. In classb we have created a function add that returns the sum of numa and numb. 1 friends should be used only for limited purpose. Similar to a friend class a friend function is a function that is given access to the private and protected members of the class in which it is declared as a friend.

The keyword friend in the class prototype inside the class definition precedes it. Following are some important points about friend functions and classes. The organization class definition. If the details of the class change the details of the friend will also be forced to change.

The friend class mechanism allows to extend the storage and access to the parts while retaining proper encapsulation as seen by the users of the data structure. Too many functions or external classes are declared as friends of a class with protected or private data it lessens the value of encapsulation of separate classes in object oriented programming. Friend definition a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. Consequently limit your.