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Nested Classes in C++

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A nested class is a class which is declared in another enclosing class. A nested class is a member and as such has the same access rights as any other member. The members of an enclosing class have no special access to members of a nested class; the usual access rules shall be obeyed.

For example, program 1 compiles without any error and program 2 fails in compilation.

Program 1




#include<iostream>
  
using namespace std;
  
 /* start of Enclosing class declaration */  
class Enclosing {      
   private:   
       int x;
     
   /* start of Nested class declaration */  
   class Nested {
      int y;   
      void NestedFun(Enclosing *e) {
        cout<<e->x;  // works fine: nested class can access 
                     // private members of Enclosing class
      }       
   }; // declaration Nested class ends here
}; // declaration Enclosing class ends here
  
int main()
{     
  
}




Program 2




#include<iostream>
  
using namespace std;
  
 /* start of Enclosing class declaration */  
class Enclosing {      
        
   int x;
     
   /* start of Nested class declaration */  
   class Nested {
      int y;   
   }; // declaration Nested class ends here
  
   void EnclosingFun(Nested *n) {
        cout<<n->y;  // Compiler Error: y is private in Nested
   }      
}; // declaration Enclosing class ends here
  
int main()
     
}


References:
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1905.pdf



Last Updated : 04 Jan, 2019
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