Stefan Strasser wrote:
Am Wednesday 21 October 2009 02:07:19 schrieb David Brownstein:
Hi, I've been thinking about adding properties to C++ for some time, and I've written several different Property<T> classes, so I've been following this discussion with great interest. IMO C# properties are not as useful as they should be; I think that ideally a property is a declarative expression that automatically generates getter and/or setter code.
For example I've been experimenting with a syntax that looks like this:
struct Example { explicit Example( std::string& strName): name( strName ), count( 0 ) { }
Property< std::string, public_get, private_set> name; Property< int, public_get, public_set> count; };
ok, I can see the benefit of that, and it solves the trivial-property-problem much better than my TRIVIAL_PROPERTY macro. but wouldn't you need an additional template argument "Example" so you could be-friend "Example" to enable private access?
however, I would keep accessing the property compatible to the established C++ property syntax. so instead of...
x.count = 5;
int I = x.count;
...Example::count would be a function object and you'd write...
x.count(5); int I = x.count();
I do not believe this is the right syntax for accessing properties. The idea of a "property" is that one uses syntax to access it as if it were a data object, while it still has the backing of a function to provide constraints.