Question

I often find myself writing very simple classes instead of C-style structs. They typically look like this:

class A
{
public:
  type mA;
  type mB;
  ...
  A(type mA,type mB,...) : mA(mA),mB(mB),... {}
}

Is that a sensible way of doing things? If yes, I was wondering whether there was any third party plugin out there or any handy short cut to automatically construct the text for the constructor (e.g. take the highlighted or existent member definitions, replace semicolons with commas, move everything on the same line, …)? Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, just use plain aggregates:

struct A
{
  type mA;
  type mB;
  ...
};

Usage:

A x = { mA, mB, ... };

An aggregate has no custom constructors, destructor and assignment operator, and it allows for plenty of optimisations. Aggregate initialization with the brace syntax for example usually constructs the members in place without even a copy. Also you get the best possible copy and move constructors and assignment operators defined for you by the compiler.