title: Accessing private members
body: <p>Is it appropriate to access a class' private members by casting it to a void pointer and then to a struct?  </p>
  
  <p>I don't think I have permissions to modify the class that contains the data members that I need to access.  I don't want to take a risk accessing the data members in an indirect way if it is not ethical.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: Had to edit this further... I am pretty sure the class wouldn't be modified, so it's ok to that extent... my only concern is, if the person who coded that class gets to know of this, it might not go down well with him :(.</p>