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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Defining members of class T within class T (_not_ recursive!)
Message-ID: <hbaker-2907951547200001@192.0.2.1>
Sender: hbaker@netcom9.netcom.com
Organization: nil
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 1995 23:47:20 GMT

Suppose I have the following nested class:

struct pair
{struct pair_rep
 {pair car,cdr;};    // inner class has member of outer class.
 pair_rep *rep;};

I understand the rule saying that a class cannot be a member of itself
[Stroustrup#2, page 545] (Bertrand Russell is now spinning in his grave ;-),
but I'm having trouble understanding why a _nested_ class cannot have a
member
of the outer class being defined.  This is especially irritating, since the
above is capable of being rewritten as [Stroustrup#2, page 645]:

struct pair
{struct pair_rep;
 pair_rep *rep;};

struct pair::pair_rep
{pair car,cdr;};

Are compiler writers just being lazy, or what??

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