Question

The following code works fine for Visual C++ 2008. However, when comes to Visual C++ 6, I get the following error. May I know why, and how I can fix the error, but still make the destructor remains in private.

class X
{
public:
    static X& instance()
    {
        static X database;
        return database;
    }

private:

    X() {}                    // Private constructor
    ~X() {}                   // Private destructor
    X(const X&);              // Prevent copy-construction
    X& operator=(const X&);   // Prevent assignment
};

int main()
{
    X::instance();
}

C:\Projects\ttt6\main.cpp(178) : error C2248: ‘X::~X’ : cannot access private member declared in class ‘X’
C:\Projects\ttt6\main.cpp(175) : see declaration of ‘X::~X’

Answer 1

The revised sample shows a confirmed compiler bug for VC6 – the common workaround was to simply make the destructor public.