The friend keyword has a number of good uses. Here are the two uses immediately visible to me:
Friend definition allows to define a function in class-scope, but the function will not be defined as a member function, but as a free function of the enclosing namespace, and won't be visible normally except for argument dependent lookup. That makes it especially useful for operator overloading:
namespace utils {
class f {
private:
typedef int int_type;
int_type value;
public:
// let's assume it doesn't only need .value, but some
// internal stuff.
friend f operator+(f const& a, f const& b) {
// name resolution finds names in class-scope.
// int_type is visible here.
return f(a.value + b.value);
}
int getValue() const { return value; }
};
}
int main() {
utils::f a, b;
std::cout << (a + b).getValue(); // valid
}
Sometimes, you find the need that a policy needs access to the derived class:
// possible policy used for flexible-class.
template<typename Derived>
struct Policy {
void doSomething() {
// casting this to Derived* requires us to see that we are a
// base-class of Derived.
some_type const& t = static_cast<Derived*>(this)->getSomething();
}
};
// note, derived privately
template<template<typename> class SomePolicy>
struct FlexibleClass : private SomePolicy<FlexibleClass> {
// we derive privately, so the base-class wouldn't notice that,
// (even though it's the base itself!), so we need a friend declaration
// to make the base a friend of us.
friend class SomePolicy<FlexibleClass>;
void doStuff() {
// calls doSomething of the policy
this->doSomething();
}
// will return useful information
some_type getSomething();
};
You will find a non-contrived example for that in this answer. Another code using that is in this answer. The CRTP base casts its this pointer, to be able to access data-fields of the derived class using data-member-pointers.