From 2435890957784103973 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,f6130266038a8c4d X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news2.telebyte.nl!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!stump.algebra.com!devnull From: SeeWebsiteForEmail@moderncppdesign.com ("Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website for Email)") Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: Private Methodes declared outside of the class Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 04:00:12 GMT Lines: 39 Sender: mail2news@demon.net Approved: fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++) Message-ID: <2oih41Fb5pb5U1@uni-berlin.de> References: <2oblfaF8nds3U1@uni-berlin.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.news.demon.net X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1092888062 21167 158.152.254.254 (19 Aug 2004 04:01:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 04:01:02 +0000 (UTC) X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-Priority: 3 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60-mulga_r1 (1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU X-Orig-X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de j75eps9aoWiNmr2B8agJ4QAIhKMOiErxz8ibr4cyMGpGVRxg4= X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.6 required=5.2 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,PRIORITY_NO_NAME autolearn=no version=2.60-mulga_r1 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Received: (from fjh@localhost) by mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9/Submit) id i7J40C3r009491; Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:00:12 +1000 (EST) X-Path: comp-std-cpp-robomod!not-for-mail X-Delivered-To: std-c++@ucar.edu X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.std.c++:1831 "Steve Clamage" wrote in message news:cfvuts$sen$1@news1nwk.SFbay.Sun.COM... > Ben Strasser wrote: >> >> I was wondering why you can not declare private methods outside of the >> class declaration? > > If you could declare member functions outside the class definition, anyone > could hijack the class (for good or bad purposes), or break the class > invariants without anyone knowing. Well, not if they don't have access to the class' private parts. (I understand this is derailing the discussion from OP's post.) > The existing rule means that the entire class interface is visible in the > class declaration, and you have a complete list of everything (members and > friends) that could be affected by an internal implementation change. > > This rule works against information hiding, but that was not a design goal > of C++ classes. I think that was a reasonable design - to access the private part of a class, you'd need to touch the header in which the class was defined. Pretty neat. What works against information hiding is that lookup precedes protection check. That arguably is a good thing, but in C++ you can't easily define a member function that's just totally "hidden". Andrei --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://www.jamesd.demon.co.uk/csc/faq.html ]