Re: friend ceclaration/definition - is this valid?

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:19:05 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<99e23f15-9343-4cc2-8bca-06dad513ea0a@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
On Aug 9, 9:51 pm, "rn" <nowaynos...@nowaynospam.com> wrote:

the code below compiles OK with gcc 4.0 but not with gcc.4.2
and visual studio 2005 (ver 8 ).

to me it seems it should not compile.


So what are you complaining about? g++ 4.0 had a bug, which has
been corrected, and everything is fine.

More likely, however, you meant that it should compile:-).

-----
class test1
{
 public:

  friend test1* newtest1(int x)


Note that this declaration doesn't make the name of the function
visible anywhere but in test1. In pre-standard C++, the name of
a friend function was "injected" into the surrounding namespace
scope (actually into file scope, because in pre-standard C++,
there weren't namespaces). The standard changed this, for a
reason I forget (it's been explained to me several times, but
I've forgotten it as many times); according to the standard,
this name can only be found 1) in newtest1, or 2) using ADL
(except that since it only takes an int as an argument, ADL
can't ever find it, since there are no associated namespaces).

You'll need some declaration in global namespace if you want to
use the function outside of test1.

  {
   test1* anobj = new test1();
   anobj->finishinit(x);
   return anobj;
  }

  virtual ~test1()
   {
  }

 private:

  int avalue;

  test1()
  {
   avalue = 0;
  }

   void finishinit(int x)
   {
    avalue = x;
   }
 };

 int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 {
  test1* tobj = newtest1(5);


Here, you're not in the class test1, and there's no declaration
of newtest1 that is visible. So the code shouldn't compile.

  delete tobj;
 }


--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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