C++: Copy contructor: Use Getters or access member vars directly?
- by cbrulak
Have a simple container class:
public Container
{
public:
Container() {}
Container(const Container& cont) //option 1
{
SetMyString(cont.GetMyString());
}
//OR
Container(const Container& cont) //option 2
{
m_str1 = cont.m_str1;
}
public string GetMyString() { return m_str1;}
public void SetMyString(string str) { m_str1 = str;}
private:
string m_str1;
}
So, would you recommend this method or accessing the member variables directly?
In the example, all code is inline, but in our real code there is no inline code.
Update (29 Sept 09):
Some of these answers are well written however they seem to get missing the point of this question:
this is simple contrived example to discuss using getters/setters vs variables
initializer lists or private validator functions are not really part of this question. I'm wondering if either design will make the code easier to maintain and expand.
Some ppl are focusing on the string in this example however it is just an example, imagine it is a different object instead.
I'm not concerned about performance. we're not programming on the PDP-11
