Forward declaration only tells the compiler "such a class exists". In your
AutoConn getConn()
since AutoConn is a value type, the whole structure of AutoConn must be known, so forward declaration of the class won't work. So you must put the actual declaration of AutoConn before ConnectionPool.
In your AutoConn, the type ConnectionPool is only referred by pointers. In this case the whole structure of ConnectionPool is not required, so forward declaration of ConnectionPool is enough.
Therefore you need to rearrangement the classes into this:
class Connection;
class ConnectionPool;
class AutoConn { ... };
class ConnectionPool { ... };
But notice that
AutoConn(ConnectionPool* pool, Connection *c) : m_pool(pool), m_connection(c) {}
~AutoConn()
{
m_pool->releaseConnection(m_connection);
}
these methods require the compiler to know the members of ConnectionPool, so a complete structure is needed. To solve this problem the definition must be placed after ConnectionPool. Thus only the constructors and destructors should remain.
class AutoConn {
...
AutoConn(ConnectionPool* pool, Connection *c);
~AutoConn();
}
class ConnectionPool { ... };
AutoConn::AutoConn(ConnectionPool* pool, Connection *c) : ... { ... }
AutoConn::~AutoConn() { ... }