header - What is the best way to deal with co-dependent classes in C++?

Question

Say I have a class foo with an object of class bar as a member

class foo
{
    bar m_bar;
};

Now suppose bar needs to keep track of the foo that owns it

class bar
{
    foo * m_pfoo;
}

The two classes reference each other and without a forward declaration, will not compile. So adding this line before foo's declaration solves that problem

class bar;

Now, here is the problem - when writing the header files, each header depends on the other: foo.h needs the definitions in bar.h and vice-versa. What is the proper way of dealing with this?

Answer 1

You need to move all of the member access out of the header, and into your source files.

This way, you can forward declare your classes in the header, and define them in foo:

// foo.h
class bar;

class foo {
    bar * m_pbar;
}

// bar.h
class foo;
class bar {
    foo * parent;
}

That will allow you to work - you just can't put definitions that require member information into your header - move it to the .cpp file. The .cpp files can include both foo.h and bar.h:

// Foo.cpp
#include "foo.h"
#Include "bar.h"

void foo::some_method() {
     this->m_pbar->do_something(); // Legal, now, since both headers have been included
}