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C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices

Make data members private, except in behaviorless aggregates (C-style structs)

41. SummaryDiscussionExamplesExceptionsReferences...

Summary

They're none of your caller's business: Keep data members private. Only in the case of simple C-style struct types that aggregate a bunch of values...

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Discussion

Information hiding is key to good software engineering (see Item 11). Prefer making all data members private; private data is the best means that a...

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Examples

Example 1: Proper encapsulation. Most classes (e.g., Matrix, File, Date, BankAccount, Security) should have all private data members and expose adequate interfaces. Allowing calling code...

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Exceptions

Get/set functions are useful, but a class consisting mostly of gets/sets is probably poorly designed: Decide whether it wants to provide an abstraction or be...

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References

[Dewhurst03] §80 • [Henricson97] pg. • [Koenig97] §4 • [Lakos96] §• [Meyers97] §20 • [Murray93] §• [Stroustrup00] §10.2.8, §15.3.1.1, §24.4.• [SuttHysl04a]...

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