Access Specifiers in C++ - Cyborg Coding

In C++, access specifiers are used to control the visibility of class members, such as properties and methods. There are three types of access specifiers: private, protected, and public.

Private members are only accessible within the class, and they cannot be accessed from outside the class. This is the default access level for class members.

Protected members have the same access level as private members, but they can also be accessed by derived classes.

Public members can be accessed from anywhere, both within the class and outside the class.

For example:

class MyClass {

private:

    int x;

    int y;

public:

    int getX() { return x; }

    int getY() { return y; }

};

In this example, the properties "x" and "y" are private, and can only be accessed by the methods within the class. The methods "getX" and "getY" are public, and can be accessed from outside the class.

The use of access specifiers promotes encapsulation, which is the practice of hiding the implementation details of a class from the outside world. This helps to maintain the integrity of the class and protect its internal state from being modified by external code.

It is also important to note that classes, structs, and unions have the same access levels (private, protected, public) as their members. By default, all members of a class are private, all members of a struct are public and all members of a union are public.

In summary, access specifiers in C++ are used to control the visibility of class members, such as properties and methods. There are three types of access specifiers: private, protected, and public. Private members are only accessible within the class, protected members can also be accessed by derived classes, and public members can be accessed from anywhere. The use of access specifiers promotes encapsulation and helps to maintain the integrity of the class.