A friend class in C++ can access the private and protected members of the class in which it is declared as a friend. A significant use of a friend class is for a part of a data structure, represented by a class, to provide access to the main class representing that data structure. The friend class mechanism allows to extend the storage and access to the parts, while retaining proper encapsulation as seen by the users of the data structure.

Similar to a friend class, a friend function is a function that is given access to the private and protected members of the class in which it is declared as a friend.

Since C++26, C++ supports "variadic friends" (i.e. friend classes that come from variadic templates).

The following example demonstrates the use of a friend-class for a graph data structure, where the graph is represented by the main class Graph, and the graph's vertices are represented by the class Vertex.

Using variadic friends:

A proper use of friend classes increases encapsulation, because it allows to extend the private access of a data-structure to its parts --- which the data-structure owns --- without allowing private access to any other external class. This way the data-structure stays protected against accidental attempts at breaking the invariants of the data-structure from outside.

It is important to notice that a class cannot give itself access to another class's private part; that would break encapsulation. Rather, a class gives access to its own private parts to another class --- by declaring that class as a friend. In the graph example, Graph cannot declare itself a friend of Vertex. Rather, Vertex declares Graph a friend, and so provides Graph an access to its private fields.

The fact that a class chooses its own friends means that friendship is not symmetric in general. In the graph example, Vertex cannot access private fields of Graph, although Graph can access private fields of Vertex.