Controlling Access to Class Members
You can increase the integrity of software built with C++ by helping control access to class member data and functions. Class members can be declared as having private, protected, or public access, as shown in the following table:
Member-Access Control
Type of Access |
Meaning |
|---|---|
Class members declared as private can be used only by member functions and friends (classes or functions) of the class. |
|
Class members declared as protected can be used by member functions and friends (classes or functions) of the class. Additionally, they can be used by classes derived from the class. |
|
Class members declared as public can be used by any function. |
Access control helps prevent you from using objects in ways they were not intended to be used. This protection is lost when explicit type conversions (casts) are performed.
Note
Access control is equally applicable to all names: member functions, member data, nested classes, and enumerators.
The default access to class members (members of a class type declared using the class keyword) is private; the default access to struct and union members is public. For either case, the current access level can be changed using the public, private, or protected keyword.