Re: Partial classes

From:
"Old Wolf" <oldwolf@inspire.net.nz>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
13 Mar 2007 15:43:23 -0700
Message-ID:
<1173825803.220982.294170@e1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
On Mar 12, 3:51 am, Adrian Hawryluk <adrian.hawryluk-at-
gmail....@nospam.com> wrote:

Can one define a partial class (first part containing constants like
enums) and then define the rest of the class elsewhere?

   #if !defined A_H
   # define A_H

   // Stub for forward referencing
   class A;

   # include "B.h"


This is not a recommended style; A.h should not both forward-declare
and define A. The forward declaration should be inside B.h . I assume
B.h requires A to be declared; what are you going to do if some other
unit includes B.h and not A.h ? Repeat the forward declaration in
every other unit?

   class A
   {
     // Interface functions
     void f(B* b, B::b_e enums);
   ...
   };
   #endif

The only way I see around this are:
2. Declare the enums outside of class scope, removing the dependency
    lock. It would be declared with the class B stub;
Problems for each are:
2. Enum is not scoped to a class.


This isn't really much of a problem, to me. If you want to force
others to use B:: before the enum values and typename then you can
write B.h like this:

  namespace B {
    enum b_e { ....... };
  };

  class B {
    ..............
  };

Then you have to use B::value for the enum values, even within B.cpp;
if you don't want this then you can include "using namespace B"
inside B.cpp .

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