What is the principle of information hiding and how does C++ support it. Also does C++ allow me to violate information hiding?
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What is the principle of information hiding and how does C++ support it. Also does C++ allow me to violate information hiding?
It supports information hiding by allowing
private:andprotected:sections in class declarations.A “supported” way to violate it is via the
friendkeyword, that allows external functions or classes to access theprivateandprotectedmembers of a class (although it’s debatable if that’s actually a “violation”).Also, in a C++ program there’s no runtime enforcing of the visibility rules, so if you manage to get a pointer to an internal field or a function pointer to an internal method nothing stops you from using it (again, this may be intentional – the class itself gave you that pointer – or “abusive” – you have a pointer to the object itself and add some offset to get to an internal member).