CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++
Jack Thomas
Jack Thomas

Reputation: 308

Friend functions not locating private members

Please do not vote this down or mark this question as a duplicate for all of the answers that I have seen in other questions have not worked for me.

I created a class called contact that stores information about contacts. I was trying to implement an operator<< to output all information, so I had to make it a friend function. The problem with this is that I am unable to access any of the class's member functions. My code is as follows:

contact.h:

class contact {
    long id;
    string first;
    string middle;
    string last;
    string company;
    string home;
    string office;
    string email;
    string mobile;
    string street;
    string city;
    string state;
    long zip;
    string country;
    vector<contact> affiliates;
public:
    // output and input
    friend ostream &operator<<(ostream &, const contact &);
};

contact.cpp:

...
ostream &operator<<(ostream &os, contact &rec) {
    print(os, rec.id);

    return os;
}
...

As you see, the function prototype is exactly the same, and I am not enclosing the class inside a namespace, which leaves no reason for the operator to be unable to access a member variable. Is this a problem with my prototype? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 49

Answers (1)

Anton Savin
Anton Savin

Reputation: 41301

The operator<< declaration and definition are actually not the same. In the friend declaration the second parameter is const contact &, and in the definition it's just contact&.

So the definition is actually unrelated to a friend declaration in the class, and defines another function which is not a friend of contact.

Upvotes: 3

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