merits & demerits of friend functions

[Kushal Thakkar]

can anyone tell me the merits & demerits of friend functions?
p.s. help me
kushal

[Clinton Portis]

the only time i can think of using friend functions is for operator overloading.. the rest of the time they should be avoided because they violate OOP data encapsulation.

[Narue]

>the rest of the time they should be avoided because they violate OOP data encapsulation.
If this is what you think, then you're not in a position to help. Those who still need to learn shouldn't be teaching.

[Bench]

Both the OP and the 1st reply could benefit from this link
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/friends.html

[SpS]

or this
http://public.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq2.html#friend

[Kushal Thakkar]

thanxs sunnypalsingh, it was a great help...

[supriya kalekar]

what r merits & demerits of friend function

[himanshu shekha]

please tell me merits and demerits of friend function

[Dave Sinkula]

Uh. Follow the links posted already in the thread? (Try not to be an unthinking idiot who is not inclined to read the replies already posted here.)

[Dave Sinkula]

Uh. Follow the links posted already in the thread? (Try not to be an unthinking idiot who is not inclined to read the replies already posted here.)