Question

I would like to combine setter/getter in one method, in C++, in order to be able to do the following:

Foo f;
f.name("Smith");
BOOST_CHECK_EQUAL("Smith", f.name());

I don’t know how can I declare such a method inside Foo class:

class Foo {
public:
  // how to set default value??
  const string& name(const string& n /* = ??? */) {
    if (false /* is it a new value? */) {
      _name = n;
    }
    return _name;
  }
private:
  string _name;
}

I’m looking for some elegant solution, with a true C++ spirit 🙂 Thanks!

Answer 1

class Foo {
public:

  const string& name() const {
    return name_;
  }

  void name(const string& value) {
    name_ = value;
  }

private:
  string name_;
};