How to define a macro that retains its scope after it's been called

Question

I'm trying to make a macro to make it easier to define properties.

Simplified example but at the moment I have this to provide a property with a public get and private set:

#define propertyRO(xxType, xxName)\
    property xxType xxName\
    {\
        xxType get() {return m___##xxName;}\
        void set(xxType value) {m___##xxName = value;}\
    }\
    private:\
        xxType m___##xxName;\

and then to use it you would do this:

public ref class Wawawa
{
public:
    int bob;
    propertyRO(String^, MyName);
};

This would potentially work great, but it's flawed because the member is specified in private scope, which means anything that occurs after the macro also gets private scope. e.g:

public ref class Wawawa
{
public:
    int bob;
    propertyRO(String^, MyName);
    int fred; //ERROR HERE <- this would be private not public
};

So if you ignore what this macro actually does, my real question is: is there any way to use the private: keyword in a macro, without it affecting the rest of the class?

Answer 1

Insert your property macro calls all together at the end of the class defintion. (And I agree, that this answer is kind of lame ;))

Answer 2

I would answer: just don't do this. Don't use macros to generate code. It looks like it's going to save you time and effort, but you've already found that the macro has a problem, which is certainly not obvious to someone reading the class declaration. You may also soon find that debugging it is a nightmare, since the debugger just points at the macro line, not the code inside it.

IMO, bite the bullet and just write out all the properties in full.

Answer 3

I have a feeling this isn't going to be possible.

So maybe a better proposal would be to rename the macro to publicPropertyRO, which would make it obvious it will create a public property. And move the private member to be above the property declaration:

#define publicPropertyRO(xxType, xxName)\
    private:\
        xxType m___##xxName;\
    public:\
        property xxType xxName\
        {\
            xxType get() {return m___##xxName;}\
            void set(xxType value) {m___##xxName = value;}\
        }\

This would then leave the class in a public: state, which I think is acceptable.
Not really answered my question, but at least it's an improvement.