Question

I have a class which has a std::vector of child control pointer. For obvious reasons, I do not want the user of the class to have direct access to the std::vector. All I would want is a way to give the caller the pointers. What would be a good OO way to do this? (this function will be called often)

Thanks

Answer 1

Provide a function that returns a const_iterator to the vector. It is also useful to add one to return the iterator to the end of the vector.

class MyClass {
public:
  typedef vector<T>::const_iterator c_iter;

  c_iter getBegin() const {return v.begin();}
  c_iter getEnd() const {return v.end();}

  // and perhaps if it's useful and not too invasive.
  const T& getAt(int i) const {return v.at(i);}

  //stuff
  vector<T> v;
};