Friend Access Specifier

Sometimes, you may wish to access the private members of a class without having to use a class method. Perhaps for a utility or a library function, you may wish to grant them access to the private members of your class. This is where the friend access specifier comes in.

The friend access specifier allows all functions, and even other classes, defined inside itself to access the private members of a class.

Warning

Members of this access specifier will not be replicated to objects, rather, these members are stored in the class itself.

local function getLicensePlate(object: any)
    print(object.License_Plate)
end

local class = ClassPP.class

local Car = class "Car" {
    Public = {
        Brand = "Lamborghini",
    },
    Private = {
        License_Plate = "XXXX"
    },
    Friend = {
        getLicensePlate
    }
}

local newCar = Car.new()
getLicensePlate(newCar)

In this example, we have a "Car" class that contains a private member called License_Plate, and a local function called getLicensePlate. By passing the reference of the getLicensePlate function to inside the friend access specifier, this function is now able to access the private members of the "Car" class.

Info

Besides functions, friend access specifier can include other classes as well. Classes can be saved by using their variables, or their names. You can put a string inside the friend access specifier that contains a class's name, and it will still work!