What are the difference between member function of a class and friend function?

Member function is in scope of the class in which it is declared. A friend function cannot be called using object of the class. A member function is called using object of the class. A friend function can be declared in private, public or protected scope of the class without any effect.

How do friend operator functions differ from member operator functions?

The basic difference between operator function as a friend function and as member function is that a friend function will have only one argument for unary operators and only one for binary operators. This is not the case with friend function. Arguments may be passed either by value or by reference.

What is member operator function?

Member functions are operators and functions declared as members of a certain class. They don’t include operators and functions declared with the friend keyword. If you write an operator function as a member function, it gains access to all of the member variables and functions of that class.

Why are the operator functions declared as global friend functions and not as class member functions?

If you can define an operator in terms of existing class public interface, define it as global function outside the class. In this way you do not extend the class public interface without need, minimizing the number of functions with access to the class private members.

What’s the difference between a friend operator function?

A friend operator function is a free function, with no ‘this’ pointer. All the operands are arguments. As a friend, it has access to the private members of any class of which it is a friend. Yes – Coding Bootcamps do work.

What’s the difference between a member function and a function?

As a member function, a member operator function has access to one operand through the ‘this’ pointer, and the other operand (s) are arguments. A member operator function has access to the private member variables and functions of its class, and of the other operand if it is of the same class type.

Can a function be a friend of more than one class?

On the other hand, a friend function, in spite of being granted access to the internal members of the class it is friend of, is still an algorithm which is logically external to the definition of the class. A function can be friend of more than one class, but it can be member of just one.

Can a friend function be implemented as a member?

This can be a friend function only because the object is on the right hand side of operator<< and argument cout is on the left hand side. So this can’t be a member function to the class, it can only be a friend function. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow!