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From: whisd@sersun1.essex.ac.uk (Whiteside S D B)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: C++ Nested Classes
Message-ID: <5263@servax0.essex.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Jun 91 17:27:18 GMT
Sender: news@servax0.essex.ac.uk
Reply-To: whisd@essex.ac.uk (Whiteside S D B)
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Lines: 26



It lets me nest a class within another, but...

i) If the class is named, then I can access the class outside the
   enclosing class (or inside it, if I assign a variable to the
   class declaration). This seems odd. The nested declaration has
   not "hidden" the class name.

   My main worry here is that this implies that the nested class
   name needs to be unique throughout the whole name space.

ii)If I declare an unnamed class, that's acceptable. But then I
   can't access the class definition to define my member functions!

   Without the naming I can't get my scope modifier :: to work, but
   with it, my nested class joins the big bad global world of classes,
   with no protection!

It's hard to see a way around this. It there a theoretical reason why
C++ is set up this way? Is it a remnant of "globalish" C or am I
just confused?

Comments please.

Simon Whiteside