'Instance of the same class inside a class in C++ [duplicate]

I want my class to have an attribute which would be an instance of the same class, something like this:

class Person
{
public:
    std::string name;
    Person nested;
};

Here my IDE (Visual Studio 2022) says incomplete type is not allowed. Is it possible to have an instance of the same class inside a class in C++? How can I implement this?

c++classoopnestedinstance


Solution 1:[1]

Person nested; will have default value, which is empty Person
So when you create Person, inside it automatically will be created Person, inside which will be created Person and so on

to avoid this, you need to use pointer

class Person
{
public:
    std::string name;
    Person* nested;
};

source: https://mrcodehunter.com/incomplete-type-is-not-allowed/

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Rigorich

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