implementation question: friend vs. gets

[mzimmers]

Hi -

If I have a program that creates objects of two different classes (A and B), and B contains other objects (BB), which in turn contains still other objects (BBB)...

...and if A needs to get a value from BBB...

...is it better to use a series of get() functions (B.get() calls BB.get() calls BBB.get()), or is there a cleaner way to do this with "friending?"

Thanks.

[kbw]

Try to avoid using friend where possible. It's usually a sign of tightly coupled classes, and that's bad.

[mzimmers]

OK, thanks.

[LB]

Only use friend when writing global namespace operators (such as stream << and >> operators). ;)