DEFINITION 8: FRIENDS - PRATMG/2143-OOP-Tamang GitHub Wiki

Friend Feature A friend function, can be granted a specific permission to access private and protected members of the class in C++. They are defined globally outside the class scope. Friend functions are not member functions of the class. A friend function can be one of the following:

• a member of another class.
• a global function.

#include <iostream>

class A {
	int a;

public:
	A() { a = 0; }

	// global friend function
	friend void showA(A&);
};

void showA(A& x)
{
	// Since showA() is a friend, it can access
	// private members of A
	std::cout << "A::a=" << x.a;
}

int main()
{
	A a;
	showA(a);
	return 0;
}

REFERENCE:

• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/friend-class-function-cpp/