Why a class can see the private members of a parameter class?-CodePudding

Note that class x and y are two separate entities and you can not see their private data members from outside of their bodies.

It is known that from int main() I can not see the private member of class x or y.

My question in the following code in line 22:

Why class x can see the private members of class y ? (note here I am sending class y as reference not as a copy) isn't the referenced class y should be protected from strangers like class x ?

Note that the function getForeignNumber(const Player &r) inside class x is not a friend to class y!

#include<iostream>

class Account{
private:
    int number{ } ;
    
public:

Account(int numberValue)
:number{numberValue}
{
    std::cout<<"constructor is called"<<std::endl;
}

int getLocalNumber()
{
    return this->number;
}

int getForeignNumber(const Account &r)
{
    return r.number; // line 22
}
    
};

int main()
{
    Account x{1};
    Account y{2};
    
    std::cout<<"get local number="<<x.getLocalNumber()<<std::endl;
    std::cout<<"get foreign number x ="<<x.getForeignNumber(x)<<std::endl;
    std::cout<<"get foreign number y="<<y.getForeignNumber(y)<<std::endl;
    
    
    std::cout<<"Hello world"<<std::endl;
    return 0;
}

CodePudding user response：

First of all, you are confusing instances of a class with the class. x and y are two instances of the same class Account.

Your analogy isnt sound. Two instances of the same class aren't "strangers". They can access all the internals of each other. Thats how access works.

From cppreference:

All members of a class (bodies of member functions, initializers of member objects, and the entire nested class definitions) have access to all names the class can access. A local class within a member function has access to all names the member function can access.

In other words, access is per class not per instance. If x would not be able to access ys private members it would be impossible for example to write a copy constructor (without getter methods, which would be silly).

PS: By the way, "see" is the wrong word. There are certain circumstances where you can "see" that there is a private member from outside of the class, you just cannot access it. One such situation is when the name of a private method shadows that of a publicly inherited method https://godbolt.org/z/Kzf5KWv4W. Hence, even colloquially "see" is the wrong word for access.

CodePudding user response：

The function getForeignNumber() can see private members of class Account because getForeignNumber() is a member of class Account.

private members are hidden from entities that are outside the class, not from other instances (objects) of the same class.