Generate accessors in Visual C++ 2008

Question

Hi, I'm trying to generate the accessors and mutators for my variables automatically, but just can't find a way. I tried the right-click/refactor... solution, but the refactor item doesn't appear.

I'm not in the mood right now to learn how to write a macro to do this, and I don't have the money to buy a commercial solution (internship student). Any help is welcome, I don't feel like writing all my get/set by hand.

note : it's C++ so the {get;set} syntax doesn't work (or does it ?).

edit : it's not about "generate a read/write accessor for all variables". I want to be able to generate a bunch of Get accessor without having to write the prototype and declaration for each of them.

Answer 1

I know writing getters/setters for all the member variables is en vogue in some languages whose advocates claim them to be much more OO than C++, but IMO if you do so, then this is not OO at all.

Please read this paper, which explains what I think about this practice much more eloquently than I ever could.

Answer 2

No, C++ doesn't have syntax for accessors. C++ programmers frown on features that are not well supported by the language. Nor does if have many Resharper style tools. If you don't like to type then C++ is not a language you should consider.

Keep Neil happy and avoid the "bad design" put-down by omitting the "get" prefix. Like size(), not getSize().

MSVC supports declaring properties with the __declspec(property) declarator. It is however very non-standard. And takes a lot of typing, you still need to write the accessor functions.