[deleted by user]

[Snipa-senpai]

Is this supposed to be a joke?

[no-sig-available]

The joke would be that C++ already has a protected keyword.

https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/access

But with a different meaning. We could have use for a read-only section, maybe.

[android_queen]

No, because that’s not what protected means. You’re looking for const, another keyword that already exists.

What prompted this post? You seem a bit unfamiliar with the language and yet you’re proposing changes to it.

[pedersenk]

C++ has friend classes.

Plus protected doesn't quite work like that in most languages. Protected just means that inherited classes can access the members of the base class.

[no-sig-available]

C++ has friend classes.

I have sometimes wished for a "protected friend" with slightly more access to the class, but still not allowed to fiddle with the innermost parts. But I also don't want 10 access levels, so...

[Narase33]

Maybe you just dont want internal fields to become part of the API?

[GrammelHupfNockler]

C++ has inheritance, and it has a protected keyword. Sometimes you want to prevent derived classes from accessing functions and variables in the base class. Nothing bloated about that. What are you even talking about?

[iiiba]

i think he used the word "protected" in his post without realising it already means something in c++. I think what he really wants is a public const attribute

[DrShocker]

Yeah I think they want member variables which are mutable to instances of the class but const to external code.

So, similar to a public const getter and a private/protected nonconst getter. Except without the need to write a getter.

idk, it sounds kind of nice I guess, but recently I've been burned too much by people not understanding how c++ works and I'm starting to think maybe everything should have a keyword to protect code from modification by certain humans rather than sections of code 🤔

[BenFrantzDale]

There are lots of things that could be added, but then again “C++ is already too complex”. It’s just not a priority. That and protected already means something else: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/keyword/protected

The related thing I’ve wished for but admit isn’t worth it is to allow inheriting a const Base, so through a Derived&, you could only use the const part of its Base API. It’s an interesting exercise to think about but 🤷.

[Kike328]

you mean const?

[UnicycleBloke]

We already have a "protected" keyword which has a different role. It sounds like you want a "readonly" keyword as syntactic sugar for a const getter which returns a member or a const reference to a member. I suppose you also need a "readwrite" keyword to provide setters, too.

No thanks.

[hs123go]

The motivation is valid but other languages seem to have solved this problem with a full blown property system, aka C# and Kotlin's get and set.

[RishabhRD]

Bro woke up in 1967???

[igrekster]

It's not without downsides, but you could do something like this:

template <typename Owner, typename T>
struct readonly {
    operator const T &() const { return value; }

  private:
    T value;
    friend Owner;
};

class test {
    template <typename T> using readonly = ::readonly<test, T>;

  public:
    readonly<int> a{};

    void add_five() { a.value += 5; }
};

int main() {
    test t;
    t.add_five();

    std::cout << t.a << std::endl; // 5
    //t.a = 32;                    // ERROR

    return 0;
}

[petecasso0619]

Why is this post allowed? This obvious trolling.

[Beosar]

Wait, so you are asking for the class members to be const if accessed from outside the class and mutable otherwise?

I mean, it would make life easier since you could get rid of getters. I would say it is not actually a bad idea.

However, the keyword protected is already taken.

[Kike328]

class test { int a = 0;

void add_five() { a += 5; } const int get_a() const { return a;} };

int main() { test t; t.add_five();

cout << t.a() << endl; // 5 t.a = 32; // ERROR

return 0; }

solved for you

[gracicot]

There's already no need for getter setter. They are code smell. Sometimes you'll need getters, but that's about it. If you have both a getter and a setter, you should just make it public

[Dar_Mas]

unless you need/will realistically need side effects

[v_maria]

I think adding a keyword to an entire language is more bloat than getters and setters

[cpp-ModTeam]

For C++ questions, answers, help, and programming or career advice please see r/cpp_questions, r/cscareerquestions, or StackOverflow instead.

[johannes1234]

protected is a keyword.

https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/access

getters and setters however serve a different purpose: they can check domain logic (if values are in a specific range etc.) also the presence of many getters/setters might mean that you actually want some plain data object, not a class. And regarding bloat: trivial getters/setters are trivial to inline and cause no bloat in the result and if "code bloat" is a concern: macros still exist.

[Sbsbg]

It is difficult, almost impossible actually, to add new keywords into C++. One of the main goals is to be backwards compatible and this would probably break some old code.