Question

In my C++ project, one of the .cpp files has a class declared. Now I want to instantiate this class in another .cpp file in the same project, but I get this error message:

error C2248: 'Processor' : cannot access private member declared in class 'Processor'
    c:\Test\wrapper.cpp : see declaration of 'Processor'

We can’t redefine the class using a different access specifier, it gets the default private access specifier.

How can I make this work?

Answer 1

You can’t (in a clean way at least), and you shouldn’t.

Making fields private (even by default) is the programmer’s way of telling you you’re not supposed to instantiate this class.

Also, if a class is defined inside a cpp file, it’s only visible in that translation unit. You don’t include cpp files. If you must, move the definition inside a header and include that, but not the cpp.