6 replies to this topic

[boredaxel]

Is it possible for an instance of a class to access the private data member of another instance of the same class?

[solartic]

well if you have a accessor method to the private data member and that data member is also static, then yes. but otherwise i don't think u would be able to.

[WingedPanther]

If you declare one class to be a friend of the other class, yes.

[boredaxel]

I mean something like this:

//This is a copy constructor that copies the
//private data member aList from aStack to
//Stack.

Stack::Stack(const Stack& aStack)
: aList(aStack.aList)
{}

I was wondering why a Stack constructor can access the private data of another instance. Isit because both are of Stack class? Is this allowed? Thanks

[WingedPanther]

Currently, your code snippet does nothing... I'm not clear on what you think is happening.

[boredaxel]

class List {
private:
...........

public:
//This is a constructor that copys elements in alist to the new list
List(const List& alist)
{......}

};


class Stack
{
public:

Stack(const Stack& aStack) : aList(aStack.aList) {}
~Stack() {}

private:
List aList;
};

I hope this code is snippet is clearer. My question is why can the constructor in Stack class access the private data of the object aStack?

[julmuri]

boredaxel said:

I hope this code is snippet is clearer. My question is why can the constructor in Stack class access the private data of the object aStack?

Just as you suspected, its because they are of the same class ( Stack ).