Friends - heshawacooray/OOP-Heshawa GitHub Wiki

Definition: A friend function is a function that is not a member of a class but has access to its private and protected members. Friend functions can be declared inside a class and are used when external functions or other classes need special access to the class’s internals.

Example code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class Car {
private:
    string brand;

public:
    Car(string b) : brand(b) {}

    friend void displayBrand(Car& c); // Friend function declaration
};

void displayBrand(Car& c) {
    cout << "Car brand: " << c.brand << endl; // Accessing private member
}

int main() {
    Car car("Toyota");
    displayBrand(car); // Calling friend function

    return 0;
}
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