Question

I’m creating a static library in C++ to define a class that others can use in their code. However, a member of the class is of a type defined in a header file obtained from someone else, and I don’t want to distribute the contents of this person’s header file.

Here is the current public interface (interface.h):

class B {
    TypeToHide t;
    // other stuff ...  
};

class A {
    double foo();
    B b;
};

And here is the code that will be compiled into a static library (code.cpp):

double A::foo() {
    // ...
}

And here is the file whose contents I need to hide from public view (HideMe.h):

struct TypeToHide {
    // stuff to hide
};

What can I do hide the contents of HideMe.h? Ideally, I could just stick the entire struct from HideMe.h into code.cpp.

Answer 1

You can use the PIMPL idiom (Chesshire Cat, Opaque Pointer, whatever you want to call it).

As the code is now, you can’t hide the definition of TypeToHide. The alternative is this:

//publicHeader.h
class BImpl;          //forward declaration of BImpl - definition not required
class B {
    BImpl* pImpl;     //ergo the name
    //wrappers for BImpl methods
};

//privateHeader.h
class BImpl
{
    TypeToHide t;  //safe here, header is private
    //all your actual logic is here
};