Question

If I have the following code:

struct someStruct
{
  int x;
  int y;
}

class someClass
{
  public:
    someStruct m_member;

    alias      m_x = m_member.x; // I am aware alias is not a keyword and even if it was, I cannot assign it a value like this
    alias      m_y = m_member.y; // I am aware alias is not a keyword and even if it was, I cannot assign it a value like this
}

Can I give aliases to m_member.x and m_member.y without incurring the extra storage cost of a reference (which is the same as a pointer)? Something similar to a typedef?

Answer 1

You can write inline access functions:

class someClass
{
public:
  someStruct m_member;
  int& mx() { return m_member.x; }
  int& my() { return m_member.y; }
  int const& mx() const { return m_member.x; }
  int const& my() const { return m_member.y; }
};

Then you can access the members as follows:

someClass foo;
foo.mx() = 3;
foo.my() = 2*foo.mx();

It’s not exactly the same syntax, but close, and a reasonably good compiler will completely optimize away the inline functions.