In Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), the “not accessible in this context because it is friend” error occurs when you try to access a friend or internal member from outside its declaring class or outside the assembly where the class is defined.
By default, when you declare a member as “Friend” (VB.NET) or “internal” (C#), it can only be accessed by other code within the same assembly. This is a way to restrict access to certain members and promote encapsulation of code.
To understand this better, let’s consider an example:
' Assembly A
Public Class MyClassA
Friend Sub MyMethod()
Console.WriteLine("This is a friend method in MyClassA")
End Sub
End Class
' Assembly B
Public Class MyClassB
Public Sub AccessFriendMethod()
Dim instanceA As New MyClassA()
instanceA.MyMethod() ' This will cause the error
End Sub
End Class
' Application entry point
Public Sub Main()
Dim instanceB As New MyClassB()
instanceB.AccessFriendMethod()
End Sub
In this example, we have two classes, MyClassA and MyClassB, defined in different assemblies (Assembly A and Assembly B). MyClassA has a friend method, MyMethod, which is accessible only within Assembly A. MyClassB tries to access this friend method and that’s where the error occurs.
To resolve this issue, you have a few options:
- Move the code that needs access to the friend member into the same assembly as the declaring class. This way, it will have the necessary access rights.
- If possible, change the access modifier of the member to be more permissive, such as making it “Public” instead of “Friend” or “internal”.
- Use reflection to access the friend member dynamically. Although this can be more complex, it allows accessing members that would otherwise be inaccessible.