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From: warsaw@nlm.nih.gov (Barry A. Warsaw)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Public vs Private header files in C++
Message-ID: <WARSAW.91Jun5121952@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov>
Date: 5 Jun 91 16:19:52 GMT
References: <5243@servax0.essex.ac.uk> <25231@well.sf.ca.us>
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Reply-To: warsaw@nlm.nih.gov
Organization: Century Computing, Inc.
Lines: 54
In-Reply-To: al@well.sf.ca.us's message of 5 Jun 91 06:24:35 GMT


>>>>> "Alfred" == Alfred Fontes <al@well.sf.ca.us> writes:

	Alfred> This can be avoided to a certain extent by putting the
	Alfred> public members at the top of the class definition,
	Alfred> followed by protected and finally by private members.
	Alfred> This saves the user from having to look at the private
	Alfred> stuff.  If you have inlines, they can immediately follow
	Alfred> the end of the class definition.

This is a Really Good Suggestion.  I'll second that, as this is the
C++ coding style we've adopted and have been using for several months.
Explicitly stating whether something is public/private/protected is
also a good habit to get into, I think.  And separating out inline
functions also helps with header file readability.  Example follows
siggy.

-Barry

"When in doubt, cout."

-------------------- cut here --------------------

// foo.h
class foo
{
public:
	foo( int num );
	inline int number( void );      // get
	inline void number( int num );  // set

protected:
	virtual int valid( int num );

private:
	int priv_number;
};

inline int foo::number( void )
{
	return( priv_number );
};

inline void foo::number( int num )
{
	if( valid( num ))
		priv_number = num;
};


// foo.cc
foo::foo( int num ) { ... };

// etc...