C++ Language Lawyer Question

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

Joel Sherrill <joel.sherrill@OARcorp.com> writes:

| Hi,
| 
| I was surprised that a particular piece of code compiled
| (with gcc 2.96 and 3.2.3 on RedHat 7.3) and wanted a
| language lawyer to tell me if this code should have.
| The issue is that I accidentally made a type definition
| private when it was used as an argument to a public method.
| 
| namespace N {
|    class C {
|      private:
|        typedef int T1_t;
|      protected:
|        typedef int T2_t;
|      public:
|        C();
|        ~C();
|        int f1(T1_t);  // private type used for public method
|        int f2(T2_t);  // protected type used for public method
|    };
| }
| 
| N::C::C() { ; }
| N::C::~C() { ; }
| int N::C::f1(T1_t x) { return x+1; }
| int N::C::f2(T2_t x) { return x+2; }
| 
| Should this work?

Yes, the program is well-formed.  Access control is applied to names,
and the check is done in their contexts of use.  You may even be able
to call N::C::f1() with an argument of type int with no error.

| If so, what is the rationale for allowing it.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean here.
The general philosophy is that you can use a name everywhere it is
visible and accessible.  N::C::T1_t is usable and accessible in the
scope of  N::C::f.

-- Gaby