Question

I have class A and class B. class A has a bunch of variables with gets/sets, but I only want those sets to be called from class B. The only way I can think of doing this is making the sets protected, and deriving class B from class A. But then class B would end up inheriting a bunch of unnecessary stuff from class A.

Example:

class A {
public:
void setHealth();
int getHealth();

private:
int health;
};

class B {
public:
void someMethod() { classAInstance.setHealth(); } //This should work

private:
A classAInstance;

};

A classAInstance;
classAInstance.setHealth(); //This should not work because its not being called from Class B

I hope I explained my question enough for you to udnerstand what I need. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You could declare the setters as protected or private, and then declare B to be a friend of A:

class A {
    friend class B;

    ...
};

See the C++ FAQ for more details: http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/friends.html.