Submitted by:

Submitted to: Natali Puri

Maninder Ma’am Course: BCA Hons.
Reg. no.:71910141
Friend Function in C++
Friend function in Cpp is a function that is preceded

by the keyword ‘Friend’. When the function is

declared as a friend, then it can access the private &

protected Data members of the class.

Access privileges in C++

You have access privileges in C++ such as public,

protected and private that helps in encapsulation

of data at various levels.

 Private
If data are declared as private in a class then it is accessible by the

member functions of the class where they are declared. The private

member functions can be accessed only by the members of the

class. By default, any member of the class is considered as private

by the C++ complier, if no specifier is declared for the member.

 Public

 The member functions with public access specifier

can be accessed outside of the class. This kind of

members is accessed by creating instance of the

class.
 Protected
Protected members are accessible by the class itself and it’s sub-
classes. The members with protected specifier act exactly like private
as long as they are referenced within the class or from the instance of
the class. This specifier specially used when you need to use
inheritance facility of C++. The protected members become private of
a child class in case of private inheritance, public in case of public
inheritance, and stay protected in case of protected inheritance.
Access Specifier Visible to own class Visible to objects of
members same/other class

Public Yes Yes

Private Yes No

Protected Yes No
Friend Functions

 A friend function of a class is defined outside that class’s

scope, yet has the right to access the non-public (and
public) members of the class.
 Let’s say you want a function to operate on objects of two
different classes and access their private data, you would
need to use a friend function.
Syntax of friend function in C++
class class_name
{
… .. …
friend return_type function_name(argument/s);
… .. …
}
Example of Friend Function
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Box {
   double width;
public:
   friend void printWidth( Box box );
   void setWidth( double wid );
};
// Member function definition
 void Box::setWidth( double wid ) {
width = wid;
}
// Note: printWidth() is not a member function of any class.
void printWidth( Box box ) {
   /* Because printWidth() is a friend of Box, it can
directly access any member of this class */
   cout << "Width of box : " << box.width <<endl;
}
// Main function for the program
int main( ) {
   Box box;
   // set box width with member function
   box.setWidth(10.0);
   // Use friend function to print the wdith.
   printWidth( box );
   return 0; Output
} Width of the box : 10
Friend Class in Cpp

 A class can also be declared to be the friend of some other

class. When we create a friend class then all the member

functions of the friend class also become the friend of the other

class. This requires the condition that the friend becoming class

must be first declared or defined (forward declaration).

Example for Friend Class
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; 
class MyClass
{
// Declare a friend class
friend class SecondClass; 
public:
MyClass() : Secret(0){}
void printMember()
 {
Cout << Secret << endl;
}
private:
int Secret;
};
 
class SecondClass
{
public:
void change( MyClass& yourclass, int x )
{

yourclass.Secret = x;
}
};
int main()
{
MyClass my_class;
SecondClass sec_class;
my_class.printMember();
sec_class.change( my_class, 5 );
my_class.printMember();
return 0;
}

Output
0
5
 In this program we are using the SecondClass object to access

the MyClass object’s datamember and change its value. This is

possible because SecondClass is a friend of MyClass

Thanks!