Accessing protected members of class from main

Question

World.cpp:

World::World() {
    //something
}
World::~World() {
    //something
}
void World::doSomething(Organism *organisms[20][20]) {
    cout << organisms[1][1]->Key(); // example of what I need to do here
}
int main() {
    World *world = new World();
    World::doSomething(world->organisms);
    return 0;
}

world.h

class World {
public:
    static void doSomething(Organism *organisms[20][20]);
    World();
    ~World();
    Organism *organisms[20][20];
};

Organism.cpp

Organism::Organism(){
}
Organism::~Organism(){
}
char Organism::Key(){
    return this->key;
}

Organism.h

class Organism {
public:
    Organism();
    ~Organism();
    // ...
    char Key();
protected:
    char key;
    // ...
};

I need to make something like a machine, creating animals. The code above works very good, to let you know: the array organisms is an array of pointers to specific organisms of type Organism, every organism contains it's char key value. My problem is that I need to make the Organism *organisms array protected or private instead of public. And there begin problems.

I have an error that I cannot access the protected member of declared in World in file World.cpp line with doSomething ( underlined organisms ).

I tried using friend etc. but none of the methods worked. Any idea how to access this array from main? (function parameters can be changed, the array need to be protected/private) Any simple method how to do this?

Thanks for help

Answer 1

You can indeed make the main function a friend of a class like so:

int main(int, char**);

namespace N {
    struct C {
        friend int ::main(int, char**);

    private:
        int privateer = 42;
    };
}

int main(int, char**) {
    ::std::cout << N::C().privateer << "\n";
}

However, why not just make doSomething a non-static member function?