Re: [boost] Getters vs. constant members

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-25 14:43:15

Julio M. Merino Vidal wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> [ I'm not sure this really belongs to this list (as opposed to some C+ 
> + generic list), but as it is related to some comments I received a  
> while ago from this list, I'm posting it here. ]
> 
> Back when I presented Boost.Process 0.1 past year, I used getters for  
> all class members that had to be exposed to the library user.
> 
> However, some reviewers commented that it was "ugly" to provide  
> getters that just returned a member's value.  I tried to change most  
> of those instances to constant members that could be queried  
> directly, but I still have doubts whether that was the correct way to  
> go.

Your doubts are well founded...

> Here are my reasons supporting getters:
>
 >...snip...
> 
> - The getter is overall suppressed, thus removing a level of  
> indirection.
> 
> - Err, what else?
> 
> Most of the work of converting getters to constant members was  
> already done in the Subversion repository, but there still are some  
> methods that were not converted.  Before switching these, I'd like to  
> reach a conclusion whether this is the way to go or not.

The standard library uses 'getters' to describe almost all class interfaces I 
can think of. So I'd go back the original approach.

Jeff