friend-class

Why friend directive is missing in Java?

Here are a few reasons off the top of my head: friend is not required. It is convenient, but not required friend supports bad design. If one class requires friend access to another, you’re doing it wrong. (see above, convenient, not required). friend breaks encapsulation. Basically, all my privates are belong to me, and that … Read more

‘friend’ functions and

Note: You might want to look at the operator overloading FAQ. Binary operators can either be members of their left-hand argument’s class or free functions. (Some operators, like assignment, must be members.) Since the stream operators’ left-hand argument is a stream, stream operators either have to be members of the stream class or free functions. … Read more