Re: Is it a bad idea to define private: as public: ?

From:
Balog Pal <pasa@lib.hu>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 18:56:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<kvcudr$1ia7$1@news.ett.com.ua>
On 8/25/2013 2:43 PM, DeMarcus wrote:

// main.cpp
#include <iostream>

#define protected public
#define private public

#include "PrintClass.h"

// PrintClass.h
#include <string>


....

This puts the program into undefined behavior land. As any program that
#defines any keyword and then includes a any standard header.

You can salvage your idea if you take care to have the definition
applied only to stuff of home-made writing, and make sure you don't link
with anything compiled separately to avoid an ODR violation.

void whiteBoxTest()
{
     PrintClass pc;
     std::cout << pc.privatePrinting() << std::endl;
}

int main()
{
     whiteBoxTest();
     return 0;
}

My question is: is this a bad idea?


Too shaky for my taste for sure.

You can use way simpler tricks to access private parts in tests. My
classes have a line 'friend struct Tester;'. And Tester is something
not existing in the real system, so no effect, but in the test suite you
can create a so-named class and use it to deal with the private state.

I can't really see the bad consequences but I guess things like SFINAE
could break.


Hm, you seem not care too much about defined behavior that all tests are
normally based on?

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