C++The Friend Keyword

C++ Friend Functions

Normally,private members of a class can only be accessed using public methods likegetters and setters. But in some cases, you can use a special function called afriend function to access them directly.

Afriend function is not a member of the class, but it is allowed to access the class's private data:

class Employee {  private:    int salary;  public:    Employee(int s) {      salary = s;    }    // Declare friend function    friend void displaySalary(Employee emp);};void displaySalary(Employee emp) {  cout << "Salary: " << emp.salary;}int main() {  Employee myEmp(50000);  displaySalary(myEmp);  return 0;}

Example Explained

• Thefriend functiondisplaySalary() is declared inside theEmployee class but defined outside of it.
• Even thoughdisplaySalary() is not a member of the class, it can still access the private membersalary.
• In themain() function, we create anEmployee object and call the friend function to print its salary.