If a function or a variable exists in scope with the name identical to the name of a class type, class can be prepended to the name for disambiguation, resulting in an elaborated type specifier.
You are always allowed to use an elaborated type specifier. Its major use case, however, is when you have a function or variable with an identical name.
Example from cppreference.com:
class T {
public:
class U;
private:
int U;
};
int main()
{
int T;
T t; // error: the local variable T is found
class T t; // OK: finds ::T, the local variable T is ignored
T::U* u; // error: lookup of T::U finds the private data member
class T::U* u; // OK: the data member is ignored
}
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