Michael Bailey wrote:
my_object.hpp
class my_object : public boost::pimpl<class my_object_impl> { public: my_object() {} void do_something(); int do_other_thing( double ) const; void lots_of_args( int, int, int, int ); };
my_object.cpp
class my_object_impl { public: void do_something() {...} int do_other_thing( double a1 ) const {...} void lots_of_args( int, int, int, int ) {...} private: ... };
BOOST_PIMPL_CTOR( my_object ); BOOST_PIMPL_METHOD( 0, my_object, do_something ); BOOST_PIMPL_METHOD( 1, my_object, do_other_thing, const ); BOOST_PIMPL_METHOD( 4, my_object, lots_of_args );
I would write: my_object.hpp class my_object_impl; class my_object { my_object_impl* pimpl; public: my_object() {} ~my_object(); void do_something(); int do_other_thing( double ) const; void lots_of_args( int, int, int, int ); }; my_object.cpp class my_object_impl { public: void do_something() {...} int do_other_thing( double a1 ) const {...} void lots_of_args( int, int, int, int ) {...} private: ... }; my_object::my_object(): pimpl(new my_object_impl) {} my_object::~my_object() { delete pimpl; } void my_object::do_something() { pimpl->do_something(); } int my_object::do_other_thing(double d) const { return pimpl->do_other_thing(d); } void my_object::lots_of_args(int a, int b, int c, int d) { pimpl->lots_of_args(a,b,c,d); } which really isn't much different in terms of the amount of typing, except for the forwarding. Can you show what your BOOST_PIMPL_METHOD expands to? I can't immediately guess how you manage to not tell it all the argument and return types. Re using the shared_ptr, this mainly gains the safety of otherwise forgetting to implement the dtor, and has speed and space disadvantages. I'm not convinced that is really useful, and so I would decouple it from the concise forwarding feature. Generally, I think that implementing pimpls falls more into the category of stuff that's best done with some sort of tool, e.g. a "pimpl wizzard" in your IDE, rather than a library. Regards, Phil.