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  • @all : Awesome answers and comments, This is such a great way to learn, there's no way i'd have learned about friends in such details in a textbook. Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 18:56
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    see: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/99589/… Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 19:58
  • In terms of "bypassing the security", they can only be declared to be friends inside the scope of the class definition, which is the same as methods really - and their ability to see private members inside the class is also the same as for methods. So it's for giving functions which aren't called in the same was as a method the ability to see inside objects of a class in the same way as a method. Commented Aug 20, 2021 at 7:13