Exceptional C++ Style 40 New Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Solutions

Chapter 17. Encapsulation

Difficulty: 4

What exactly is encapsulation as it applies to C++ programming? What does proper encapsulation and access control mean for member data—should it ever be public or protected? This Item focuses on alternative answers to these questions, and shows how those answers can increase either the robustness or the fragility of your code.

JG Question

1. What does “encapsulation” mean? How important is it to object-oriented design and programming?

Guru Question

1. Under what circumstances, if any, should nonstatic class data members be made public, protected, and private? Express your answer as a coding guideline.

2. The std::pair class template uses public data members because it is not an encapsulated class but only a simple way ...