Question

I just started programming in C++, and I’ve tried to create 2 classes where one will contain the other.

File A.h:

#ifndef _A_h
#define _A_h

class A{
    public:
        A(int id);
    private:
        int _id;
        B _b; // HERE I GET A COMPILATION ERROR: B does not name a type
};

#endif

File A.cpp:

#include "A.h"
#include "B.h"
#include <cstdio>

A::A(int id): _id(id), _b(){
    printf("hello\n the id is: %d\n", _id);
}

File B.h:

#ifndef _B_h
#define _B_h

class B{
    public:
        B();
};
#endif

File B.cpp:

#include "B.h"
#include <cstdio>

B::B(){
    printf("this is hello from B\n");
}

I first compile the B class and then the A class, but then I get the error message:

A.h:9: error: ‘B’ does not name a type

How do I fix this problem?

Answer 1

The preprocessor inserts the contents of the files A.h and B.h exactly where the include statement occurs (this is really just copy/paste). When the compiler then parses A.cpp, it finds the declaration of class A before it knows about class B. This causes the error you see. There are two ways to solve this:

1. Include B.h in A.h. It is generally a good idea to include header files in the files where they are needed. If you rely on indirect inclusion though another header, or a special order of includes in the compilation unit (cpp-file), this will only confuse you and others as the project gets bigger.

2. If you use member variable of type B in class A, the compiler needs to know the exact and complete declaration of B, because it needs to create the memory-layout for A. If, on the other hand, you were using a pointer or reference to B, then a forward declaration would suffice, because the memory the compiler needs to reserve for a pointer or reference is independent of the class definition. This would look like this:

   class B; // forward declaration        
   class A {
   public:
       A(int id);
   private:
       int _id;
       B & _b;
   };
   

   This is very useful to avoid circular dependencies among headers.

I hope this helps.