LESSON 624 OF 667 · OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING

Access Specifiers in C++

Lesson

TL ; DR:

C++ has three access specifiers: public:, private:, and protected:. They appear as labels in the class body and apply to everything below them until the next label.

By default, members of a class are private (and members of a struct are public):

class Dog {
private:
    string name;          // hidden from outside
public:
    Dog(string name) { this->name = name; }
    string getName() { return name; }
};

Outside the class, rex.name is a compile error. Use rex.getName() instead.

Full lesson:

Access specifiers in C++ work like access modifiers in Java/C#, but with different syntax — they're section labels rather than per-member modifiers.

class BankAccount {
private:
    double balance;        // hidden

public:
    void deposit(double amount) {
        if (amount < 0) return;
        balance += amount;
    }
    double getBalance() { return balance; }
};

If balance were public, any client could just write account.balance = -1000; and corrupt the state.

Your task

The Dog class has its name member in a private: block. Add a string getName() member function under public: that returns name.

Dog's name: Rex

STEP 1 OF 2

Guided

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