invalid use of non-static data member

Question

For a code like this:

class foo {
  protected:
    int a;
  public:
    class bar {
      public:
        int getA() {return a;}   // ERROR
    };
    foo()
             


        

Answer 1

The nested class doesn't know about the outer class, and protected doesn't help. You'll have to pass some actual reference to objects of the nested class type. You could store a foo*, but perhaps a reference to the integer is enough:

class Outer
{
    int n;

public:
    class Inner
    {
        int & a;
    public:
        Inner(int & b) : a(b) { }
        int & get() { return a; }
    };

    // ...  for example:

    Inner inn;
    Outer() : inn(n) { }
};

Now you can instantiate inner classes like Inner i(n); and call i.get().