Question

That’s my header:

#ifndef MYCLASSES_H_
#define MYCLASSES_H_

#define ARRAY_SIZE(x) (sizeof((x)) / sizeof((x)[0]))

namespace mynamespace {

class A
{
    class B
    {
        class C
        {
            void doStuff(B *pB);
        }

        static const C SOME_ARRAY[];
        static const int SOME_ARRAY_COUNT;
    }
}

} //namespace mynamespace
#endif /* MYCLASSES_H_ */

And that’s the CPP:

#include "myclasses.h"

namespace mynamespace {

void A::B::C::doStuff(A::B *pB)
{
    /* ... */
}

const A::B::C A::B::SOME_ARRAY[] = {
    /*...*/
};

const A::B::SOME_ARRAY_COUNT = ARRAY_SIZE(

} //namespace mynamespace

What shall I do to make the definitions in the .CPP file have shorter names? It’s incredibly cumbersome.

Answer 1

Man walks into a doctor. He says “Doctor, my head hurts when I bang it against the wall”. Doctor says: “Don’t bang your head on the wall and your head will stop hurting”.

Since B and C are in a private section of class A the world can not see them.

So there is no need to nest them inside A just make them non visible to the outside world.
The easy way to do this is to put them in an anonymous namespace inside the source file.

#ifndef MYCLASSES_H_
#define MYCLASSES_H_

#define ARRAY_SIZE(x) (sizeof((x)) / sizeof((x)[0]))

namespace mynamespace {

class A
{
}

} //namespace mynamespace
#endif /* MYCLASSES_H_ */

And that’s the CPP:

#include "myclasses.h"


namespace
{
    // This is an anonymouse namespace
    // It does not export it symbols outside the compilation unit.
    // So only A should be able to see them
    class B
    {
            static const C SOME_ARRAY[];
            static const int SOME_ARRAY_COUNT;
    };
    class C
    {
            void doStuff(B *pB);
    };
}
void C::doStuff(B *pB)
{
    /* ... */
}

const C B::SOME_ARRAY[] = {
    /*...*/
};

const B::SOME_ARRAY_COUNT = ARRAY_SIZE(