Calling this->get/this->set methods versus directly accesing member variables in C++

Question

Suppose I have a class Foo, with a private variable bar_ containing some state for Foo. If necessary, I may write public get/set metho

Answer 1

There is no rule that fits every situation in my opinion. Sometimes, it is better to write these private set/get functions, sometimes it is not.

For example, if all what get/set functions do is this:

void set(int n)
{
   member_n = n;
}
int get_n() const
{
  return member_n;
}

Then, there is no need actually for these functions!

In other situations, where you need to normalize a value for example, you could write those get/set functions. e.g. to normalize an angle:

void setAngle(int angle)
{
  member_angle = angle%two_PI;
}