Accessing private field of Derived object in Base class

Hi,
I have this piece of code I wrote a while ago to test something. The issue is accessing a private field of Base class in Base but of a Derived object.
Here is the code:
class Base
     private int x;
     public int getX()
          return x;
     public int getX(Derived d)
          // return d.x;
          return ((Base) d).x;
}The commented code does not work but casting d to Base does.
Can someone please explain the reasoning for this.
Forgot to mention that the compilation error is that x has private access in Base.
Thank you.
Edited by: 953012 on Apr 1, 2013 8:42 AM

>
As I understand the explanation says that you can access any private member within the code of the class that encloses the private member. So in this case x is the private member and the line of code (return d.x) is in Base which encloses the private member. Does it have to do with the fact that the Derived class does not in fact inherit the private members of Base?
>
It has to do with the entire quote from the spec
>
A private class member or constructor is accessible only within the body of the top level class (§7.6) that encloses the declaration of the member or constructor. It is not inherited by subclasses
>
Your code is
public int getX(Derived d)
          // return d.x;
          return ((Base) d).x;
     }The 'Derived' class is NOT 'the top level class that encloses the declaration of the member'. It does NOT inherit 'x' which is a private member of 'Base'. As far as the 'Derived' class is concerned 'x' does not exist.
>
If outside Base code I have Derived d = new Derived() and I call d.getX() then isn't that like calling d.x in myX()?
>
How is that the same? 'Base' owns 'x' and can do whatever it wants with it. 'Derived' has no knowledge of 'x' and CAN NOT access it.

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