Question

I would like my c++ code to be as encapsulated as i can is this manner of return the iterators is ok?

const map<string,bool>::iterator getFollowers() {

        return followers.begin();

    }

    const map<string,bool>::iterator getFollowing() {

        return following.begin();

    }

the full code:

#ifndef twitClient_twitUser_h
#define twitClient_twitUser_h

#include <map>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;
class user {
    string username;
    map<string,bool> followers;
    map<string,bool> following;
    string name;


public:

    user(string username):username(username) {
        followers [username] = false;
        following [username] = false;
    }

    bool removeFollower (string friendName);
    bool addFollower(string friendName);
    bool stopFollowing(string friendName);
    bool startFollowing(string friendName);

    const map<string,bool>::iterator getFollowers() {

        return followers.begin();

    }

    const map<string,bool>::iterator getFollowing() {

        return following.begin();

    }


};

Answer 1

There’s nothong wrong with your approach, except that you may want to add const access methods too, foe example

map<string,bool>::const_iterator getFollowers() const;

Plus you want to add access to the end() iterators too.

Concerning encapsulation, you encapsulate the map, but your clients are exposed to map<string, bool>::iterator. There’s a very interesting article about hiding those dependencies here. It is by no means trivial, but it is still worth considering.