I have created a class that models time slots in a variable-granularity daily schedule, where, for example, the first time slot is 30 minutes, but the second time slot can be 40 minutes and the first available slot starts at (a value comparable to) 1.
What I want to do now is to define somehow the maximum and minimum allowable values that this class takes and I have two practical questions in order to do so:
1.- Does it make sense to define absolute minimum and maximum in such a way for a custom class? Or better, does it suffice that a value always compares as lower-than any other possible value of the type, given the class's defined relational operators, to be defined the min? (and analogusly for the max)
2.- Assuming the previous question has an answer modeled after "yes" (or "yes but ..."), how do I define such max/min? I know that there is std::numeric_limits<> but from what I read it is intended for "numeric types". Do I interpret that as meaning "represented as a number" or can I make a broader assumption like "represented with numbers" or "having a correspondence to integers"? After all, it would make sense to define the minimum and maximum for a date class, and maybe for a dictionary class, but numeric_limits may not be intended for those uses (I don't have much experience with it). Plus, numeric_limits has a lot of extra members and information that I don't know what to make with. If I don't use numeric_limits, what other well-known / widely-used mechanism does C++ offer to indicate the available range of values for a class?
Having trouble making sense of your question. I think what you're asking is whether it makes sense to be assertive about the class's domain (that data which can be fed to it and make sense), and if so how to be assertive.
The first has a very clear answer: yes, absolutely. You want your class to be, "...easy to use correctly and difficult to use incorrectly." This includes making sure the clients of the class are being told when they do something wrong.
The second has a less clear answer. Much of the time you'll simply want to use the assert() function to assert a function or class's domain. Other times you'll want to throw an exception. Sometimes you want to do both. When performance can be an issue sometimes you want to provide an interface that does neither. Usually you want to provide an interface that can at least be checked against so that the clients can tell what is valid/invalid input before attempting to feed it to your class or function.
The reason you might want to both assert and throw is because throwing an exception destroys stack information and can make debugging difficult, but assert only happens during build and doesn't actually do anything to protect you from running calculations or doing things that can cause crashes or invalidate data. Thus asserting and then throwing is often the best answer so that you can debug when you run into it while testing but still protect the user when those bugs make it to the shelf.
For your class you might consider a couple ways to provide min/max. One is to provide min/max functions in the class's interface. Another might be to use external functionality and yes, numeric_limits might just be the thing since a range is sometimes a type of numeric quantity. You could even provide a more generic interface that has a validate_input() function in your class so that you can do any comparison that might be appropriate.
The second part of your question has a lot of valid answers depending on a lot of variables including personal taste.
As the designer of your schedule/slot code, it's up to you as to how much flexibility/practicality you want.
Two simple approaches would be to either define your own values in that class
const long MIN_SLOT = 1;
const long MAX_SLOT = 999; // for example
Or define another class that holds the definitions
class SchedLimits{
public:
const static long MIN_SLOT = 1;
const static long MAX_SLOT = 999;
}
Simplest of all would be enums. (my thanks to the commenter that reminded me of those)
enum {MIN_SLOT = 1, MAX_SLOT = 999};
Just create some const static members that reflect the minimums and maximums.
Related
Looking at our code base, I see many cases, where fields of derived types make you expect them to remain unchanged once initialized and ideally, to be initialized all at once and never changed afterwards (like a "value type").
In practice, quick solutions have built up, such that whether a field changes or even what it contains may depend on the code path, leading to large IF-ELSE cascades everywhere, making the code hard to follow and brittle against changes.
This made me wonder: Is it possible to enforce constraints such as immutability of fields?
you can use the "parameter" key word to make a variable a constant.
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/fortran/fortran_constants.htm
real, parameter :: g = 9.81
You would have to know the values at compile time so this may not be what you're looking for. If it's not, could you give us some clarification and we can try to help you?
************EDIT******************
As others have stated above, if you need to be able to set the variable at runtime, then getters and setters are the way to go.
You can either make the variable private and write a getter and a setter for it or if you make the variable protected then you only need to write a setter for it.
This is a followup question on my previous question:
Initialize const members using complex function in C++ class
In short, I have a program that has a class Grid that contains the properties of a 3D grid. I would like the properties of this grid to be read-only after creation, such that complex functions within the class cannot accidentally mess the grid up (such as if(bla = 10), instead of if(bla == 10)) etc. Now, this question has been answered well in the previous discussion: calling an initializer lists via a create function.
Here comes my new problem. My Grid has many properties that just plainly describe the grid (number of grid points, coordinates at grid points etc.) for which it just does not make sense to redistribute them among different objects. Still, basic textbooks in C++ always link functions with a large number of parameters to bad design, but I need them in order to be able to have const member variables.
Are there any standard techniques to deal with such problems?
The answer depends on what you're trying to protect.
If you're trying to assure that users of the class can't inadvertently alter the critical parameters, then the way to do that is to declare these members as private or protected and only provide const getters if they're needed at all outside the class implementation.
If you're trying to assure that the implementer of the Grid class doesn't alter these values, then there a few ways to do so. One simple way is to create a subclass that contains just those parameters and then the answer looks just like 1. Another way is to declare them const in which case they must be initialized when a Grid instance is constructed.
If the answer is 2, then there are also some other things that one can do to prevent inadvertently altering critical values. During the time that you're writing and testing the class implementation, you could temporarily use fixed dummy const values for the critical parameters, assuring that the other functions you write cannot alter those values.
One more trick to avoid specifically the if (i=7) ... error when you meant to write if (i == 7) ... is to always put the constant first. That is, write if (7 == i) .... Also, any decent compiler should be able to flag a warning for this kind of error -- make sure you're taking advantage of that feature by turning on all of the warning and error reporting your compiler provides.
This question already has answers here:
Why use getters and setters/accessors?
(37 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
I've been told not to make my variables public inside a class. I should always make a get and a set function. For example :
class Whatever
{
public:
void setSentence(const std::string &str) { sentence = str; }
void setAnInteger(const int integer) { anInteger = integer; }
std::string getSentence() { return sentence; }
int getAnInteger() { return anInteger; }
private:
std::string sentence;
int anInteger;
};
Why should I do that? Isn't just simply using those variables more convenient? Also, is that a good c++ programming style?
The main reason is to increase encapsulation. If your class exposes those member variables, many functions in your client code will have a dependency towards those variables.
Suppose one day you want want to change the name of those variables, or you want to change the implementation of your class so that the type and number of member variables would be different than the current one: how many functions would be affected by this change? How many functions would you have to re-write (at least in part)?
Right, potentially infinite. You just can't count them all. On the other hand, if you have getters and setters, only those 4 functions will have access to the internal representation of your class. Changing the internal representation won't require any change to the code of your client functions; only those 4 member functions may have to be changed.
In general, encapsulation makes your life easier with respect to future changes. At a certain point in time you may want to log a message every time a certain property is set. You may want to fire an event every time a certain property is set. You may want to compute a certain value on the fly rather than reading it each time from a cache data member, or read it from a database, or whatever.
Having getters and setters allow you to implement any of those changes without requiring to change the client code.
As far as general design philosophy is concerned, there is no "always" or "never" when it comes to implementing accessors versus not implementing accessors that the community as a whole agrees on.
Many will advise you to make all data members private and provide accessors & mutators. Always.
Others will tell you to make data members private if changing them from client code is undesirable, and leave them public otherwise.
Yet others will tell you that classes shouldn't have more than one or so data member at all, and all the data should be encapsulated in yet another object, preferably a struct.
You have to decide for yourself which is right, keeping in mind that this will depend not only on your approach, but also that of the organization for which you work.
If you ask me, my preference is to make everything public until I have a reason not to. Simple. But that's just me.
You write explicit getters and setters as a sane plan for future development. If your class' users are directly accessing its members and you need to change the class in a way that is incompatible with that habit, you have to change every chunk of code that interfaces with you in this way. If you write a getter and setter, the compiler will optimize it to be time-equivalent to direct access (if that is all it does) and you can later change the logic if you need to - without having to change a ton of other code.
When you make get or set method and use it 40 times in your code, you can handle future changes more easily.
Imagine, that you use public variable and use it 40 times in your code. After a month of developing your program, you'll come up with a great idea: What if I divide this variable by 1000 and so I would have better values to calculate with!
Wow, great, but now I have to find every single line, where I use it and change it. If I only had a get method :(
That's the main reason of getters and setters, even if they are very simple, it's better to have it. You will thank yourself once.
Data encapsulation is one of the major principles of OOP. It is the process of combining data and functions into a single unit called class. Using the method of encapsulation, the programmer cannot directly access the data. Data is only accessible through the functions existing inside the class so that the implementation details of a class that are hidden from the user. It's to protect both the caller and the function from accidentally changing the behavior of a method, or from needing to know how a method works.
The textbook-ish answer recalled from me taking the first OOP class was: Get and set methods are used to wrap around private variables. Usually people compare between having get and set or just simply set those variables to be public; in this case, get and set approach is good because it protects those variables from being modified accidentally due to bugs and etc..
People (me when I took that class) might ask "isn't get and set also modify those variables, if so, how is that different than being modified as a public variable".
The rationale is: to have get and set function, you are asking the user or yourself to explicitly specify they want to modify the variable by calling those functions. Without calling those functions, the private variables will be less likely (still possible depends on implementation) modified unwillingly or accidentally.
In short, you should not do that.
In general, I suggest to read Fowler's Refactoring, then you will have a picture what gets hindered by having naked data, and what kind of access aligns well. And importantly whether the whole thing applies to your cases or not.
And as you know pros&cons you can safely ignore "should do/don't" stuff like at start of this answer or others.
Tell, don't ask principle here is often pasted to me when I use getters or setters, and people tell me not to use them.
The site clearly explains what I should and what I shouldn't do, but it doesn't really explain WHY I should tell, instead of asking.
I find using getters and setters much more efficient, and I can do more with them.
Imagine a class Warrior with attributes health and armor:
class Warrior {
unsigned int m_health;
unsigned int m_armor;
};
Now someone attacks my warrior with a special attack that reduces his armor for 5 seconds. Using setter's it would be like this:
void Attacker::attack(Warrior *target)
{
target->setHealth(target->getHealth() - m_damage);
target->setArmor(target->getArmor() - 20);
// wait 5 seconds
target->setArmor(target->getArmor() + 20);
}
And with tell, don't ask principle it would look like this (correct me if i'm wrong):
void Attacker::attack(Warrior *target)
{
target->hurt(m_damage);
target->reduceArmor(20);
// wait 5 seconds
target->increaseArmor(20);
}
Now the second one obviously looks better, but I can't find the real benefits of this.
You still need the same amount of methods (increase/decrease vs set/get) and you lose the benefit of asking if you ever need to ask.
For example, how would you set warriors health to 100?
How do you figure out whether you should use heal or hurt, and how much health you need to heal or hurt?
Also, I see setters and getters being used by some of the best programmers in the world.
Most APIs use it, and it's being used in the std lib all the time:
for (i = 0; i < vector.size(); i++) {
my_func(i);
}
// vs.
vector.execForElements(my_func);
And if I have to decide whether to believe people here linking me one article about telling, not asking, or to believe 90% of the large companies (apple, microsoft, android, most of the games, etc. etc.) who have successfully made a lot of money and working programs, it's kinda hard for me to understand why would tell, don't ask be a good principle.
Why should I use it (should I?) when everything seems easier with getters and setters?
You still need the same amount of methods (increase/decrease vs set/get) and you lose the benefit of asking if you ever need to ask.
You got it wrong. The point is to replace the getVariable and setVariable with a meaningful operation: inflictDamage, for example. Replacing getVariable with increaseVariable just gives you different more obscure names for the getter and setter.
Where does this matter. For example, you don't need to provide a setter/getter to track the armor and health differently, a single inflictDamage can be processed by the class by trying to block (and damaging the shield in the process) and then taking damage on the character if the shield is not sufficient or your algorithm demands it. At the same time you can add more complex logic in a single place.
Add a magic shield that will temporarily increase the damage caused by your weapons for a short time when taking damage, for example. If you have getter/setters all attackers need to see if you have such an item, then apply the same logic in multiple places to hopefully get to the same result. In the tell approach attackers still need to just figure out how much damage they do, and tell it to your character. The character can then figure out how the damage is spread across the items, and whether it affects the character in any other way.
Complicate the game and add fire weapons, then you can have inflictFireDamage (or pass the fire damage as a different argument to the inflictDamage function). The Warrior can figure out whether she is affected by a fire resistance spell and ignore the fire damage, rather than having all other objects in the program try to figure out how their action is going to affect the others.
Well, if that's so, why bother with getters and setters after all? You can just have public fields.
void Attacker::attack(Warrior *target)
{
target->health -= m_damage;
target->armor -= 20;
// wait 5 seconds
target->armor += 20;
}
The reason is simple here. Encapsulation. If you have setters and getters, it's no better than public field. You don't create a struct here. You create a proper member of your program with defined semantics.
Quoting the article:
The biggest danger here is that by asking for data from an object, you
are only getting data. You’re not getting an object—not in the large
sense. Even if the thing you received from a query is an object
structurally (e.g., a String) it is no longer an object semantically.
It no longer has any association with its owner object. Just because
you got a string whose contents was “RED”, you can’t ask the string
what that means. Is it the owners last name? The color of the car? The
current condition of the tachometer? An object knows these things,
data does not.
The article here suggests here that "tell, don't ask" is better here because you can't do things that make no sense.
target->setHealth(target->getArmor() - m_damage);
It doesn't make sense here, because the armor has nothing in relation to health.
Also, you got it wrong with std lib here. Getters and setters are only used in std::complex and that's because of language lacking functionality (C++ hadn't had references then). It's the opposite, actually. C++ standard library encourages usage of algorithms, to tell the things to do on containers.
std::for_each(begin(v), end(v), my_func);
std::copy(begin(v), end(v), begin(u));
One reason that comes to mind is the ability to decide where you want the control to be.
For example, with your setter/getter example, the caller can change the Warrior's health arbitrarily. At best, your setter might enforce maximum and minimum values to ensure the health remains valid. But if you use the "tell" form you can enforce additional rules. You might not allow more than a certain amount of damage or healing at once, and so on.
Using this form gives you much greater control over the Warrior's interface: you can define the operations that are permitted, and you can change their implementation without having to rewrite all the code that calls them.
At my point of view, both codes do the same thing. The difference is in the expressivity of each one. The first one (setters anad getters) can be more expressive than the second one (tell, don' ask).
It's true that, when you ask, you are going to make a decision. But it not happens in most part of times. Sometimes you just want to know or set some value of the object, and this is not possible with tell, don't ask.
Of course, when you create a program, it's important to define the responsabilities of an object and make sure that these responsabilities remains only inside the object, letting the logic of your application out of it. This we already know, but if you need ask to make a decision that's not a responsability of your object, how do you make it with tell, don't ask?
Actually, getters and setters prevails, but it's common to see the idea of tell, don't ask together with it. In other words, some APIs has getters and setters and also the methods of the tell, don't ask idea.
In a project I am working on, we have several "disposable" classes. What I mean by disposable is that they are a class where you call some methods to set up the info, and you call what equates to a doit function. You doit once and throw them away. If you want to doit again, you have to create another instance of the class. The reason they're not reduced to single functions is that they must store state for after they doit for the user to get information about what happened and it seems to be not very clean to return a bunch of things through reference parameters. It's not a singleton but not a normal class either.
Is this a bad way to do things? Is there a better design pattern for this sort of thing? Or should I just give in and make the user pass in a boatload of reference parameters to return a bunch of things through?
What you describe is not a class (state + methods to alter it), but an algorithm (map input data to output data):
result_t do_it(parameters_t);
Why do you think you need a class for that?
Sounds like your class is basically a parameter block in a thin disguise.
There's nothing wrong with that IMO, and it's certainly better than a function with so many parameters it's hard to keep track of which is which.
It can also be a good idea when there's a lot of input parameters - several setup methods can set up a few of those at a time, so that the names of the setup functions give more clue as to which parameter is which. Also, you can cover different ways of setting up the same parameters using alternative setter functions - either overloads or with different names. You might even use a simple state-machine or flag system to ensure the correct setups are done.
However, it should really be possible to recycle your instances without having to delete and recreate. A "reset" method, perhaps.
As Konrad suggests, this is perhaps misleading. The reset method shouldn't be seen as a replacement for the constructor - it's the constructors job to put the object into a self-consistent initialised state, not the reset methods. Object should be self-consistent at all times.
Unless there's a reason for making cumulative-running-total-style do-it calls, the caller should never have to call reset explicitly - it should be built into the do-it call as the first step.
I still decided, on reflection, to strike that out - not so much because of Jalfs comment, but because of the hairs I had to split to argue the point ;-) - Basically, I figure I almost always have a reset method for this style of class, partly because my "tools" usually have multiple related kinds of "do it" (e.g. "insert", "search" and "delete" for a tree tool), and shared mode. The mode is just some input fields, in parameter block terms, but that doesn't mean I want to keep re-initializing. But just because this pattern happens a lot for me, doesn't mean it should be a point of principle.
I even have a name for these things (not limited to the single-operation case) - "tool" classes. A "tree_searching_tool" will be a class that searches (but doesn't contain) a tree, for example, though in practice I'd have a "tree_tool" that implements several tree-related operations.
Basically, even parameter blocks in C should ideally provide a kind of abstraction that gives it some order beyond being just a bunch of parameters. "Tool" is a (vague) abstraction. Classes are a major means of handling abstraction in C++.
I have used a similar design and wondered about this too. A fictive simplified example could look like this:
FileDownloader downloader(url);
downloader.download();
downloader.result(); // get the path to the downloaded file
To make it reusable I store it in a boost::scoped_ptr:
boost::scoped_ptr<FileDownloader> downloader;
// Download first file
downloader.reset(new FileDownloader(url1));
downloader->download();
// Download second file
downloader.reset(new FileDownloader(url2));
downloader->download();
To answer your question: I think it's ok. I have not found any problems with this design.
As far as I can tell you are describing a class that represents an algorithm. You configure the algorithm, then you run the algorithm and then you get the result of the algorithm. I see nothing wrong with putting those steps together in a class if the alternative is a function that takes 7 configuration parameters and 5 output references.
This structuring of code also has the advantage that you can split your algorithm into several steps and put them in separate private member functions. You can do that without a class too, but that can lead to the sub-functions having many parameters if the algorithm has a lot of state. In a class you can conveniently represent that state through member variables.
One thing you might want to look out for is that structuring your code like this could easily tempt you to use inheritance to share code among similar algorithms. If algorithm A defines a private helper function that algorithm B needs, it's easy to make that member function protected and then access that helper function by having class B derive from class A. It could also feel natural to define a third class C that contains the common code and then have A and B derive from C. As a rule of thumb, inheritance used only to share code in non-virtual methods is not the best way - it's inflexible, you end up having to take on the data members of the super class and you break the encapsulation of the super class. As a rule of thumb for that situation, prefer factoring the common code out of both classes without using inheritance. You can factor that code into a non-member function or you might factor it into a utility class that you then use without deriving from it.
YMMV - what is best depends on the specific situation. Factoring code into a common super class is the basis for the template method pattern, so when using virtual methods inheritance might be what you want.
Nothing especially wrong with the concept. You should try to set it up so that the objects in question can generally be auto-allocated vs having to be newed -- significant performance savings in most cases. And you probably shouldn't use the technique for highly performance-sensitive code unless you know your compiler generates it efficiently.
I disagree that the class you're describing "is not a normal class". It has state and it has behavior. You've pointed out that it has a relatively short lifespan, but that doesn't make it any less of a class.
Short-lived classes vs. functions with out-params:
I agree that your short-lived classes are probably a little more intuitive and easier to maintain than a function which takes many out-params (or 1 complex out-param). However, I suspect a function will perform slightly better, because you won't be taking the time to instantiate a new short-lived object. If it's a simple class, that performance difference is probably negligible. However, if you're talking about an extremely performance-intensive environment, it might be a consideration for you.
Short-lived classes: creating new vs. re-using instances:
There's plenty of examples where instances of classes are re-used: thread-pools, DB-connection pools (probably darn near any software construct ending in 'pool' :). In my experience, they seem to be used when instantiating the object is an expensive operation. Your small, short-lived classes don't sound like they're expensive to instantiate, so I wouldn't bother trying to re-use them. You may find that whatever pooling mechanism you implement, actually costs MORE (performance-wise) than simply instantiating new objects whenever needed.