Class variables: public access read-only, but private access read/write

Question

Whoopee, not working on that socket library for the moment. I\'m trying to educate myself a little more in C++.

With classes, is there a way to make a variable read-

Answer 1

Of course you can:

class MyClass
{
    int x_;

public:
    int x() const { return x_; }
};

If you don't want to make a copy (for integers, there is no overhead), do the following:

class MyClass
{
    std::vector v_;

public:
    decltype(v)& v() const { return v_; }
};

or with C++98:

class MyClass
{
    std::vector v_;

public:
    const std::vector& v() const { return v_; }
};

This does not make any copy. It returns a reference to const.