Class variables: public access read-only, but private access read/write

Question

Whoopee, not working on that socket library for the moment. I\'m trying to educate myself a little more in C++.

With classes, is there a way to make a variable read-

Answer 1

The only way I know of granting read-only access to private data members in a c++ class is to have a public function. In your case, it will like:

int getx() const { return x; }

or

int x() const { return x; }.

By making a data member private you are by default making it invisible (a.k.a no access) to the scope outside of the class. In essence, the members of the class have read/write access to the private data member (assuming you are not specifying it to be const). friends of the class get access to the private data members.

Refer here and/or any good C++ book on access specifiers.