grumpy

Usually I see public members (and attributes, if any) placed first in a header. The usual reason given is that private/protected members are implementation details, while public members are what is necessary to use the class. And, if more than one person uses the class, it is better to place what they need near the top of the header rather than forcing someone to scroll down through implementation details they aren't interested in.

People who care about the ability of customers to use their class library are often notable for insisting that public members appear near the top of a class declaration. That probably means that people who prefer private members near the top are more concerned with making it easier to modify the class implementation, and less concerned about the impact that has on other people who use their classes.

stevengs

Thanks Grumpy... that makes good sense... the 'interface' to comes first (it suddenly becomes obvious that I have been working alone in a cave all this time..) I reckon I was used to putting private at the top in part due to the fact that it was default and no declaration was necessary. Is that part of the standard, or is that compiler specific? (all these questions.. )

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skuinders

Basically, we are trying to think outside the box here. We want to utilize our resources and implement the new "go-to" strategy and hopefully make a significant impact on the global market.

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grumpy

Unless you use modify the access (i.e. use public or protected keywords to override it) everything declared in a class body is private. That is required by the C++ standard.

The only difference between a C++ struct and a C++ class is that, by default, all members of a struct are public and all members of a class are private. Again, this is required by the C++ standard.

The fact that it is (relatively) common practice to place public members near the top of a class declaration is a style guideline. With liberal use of public, protected, and private keywords you can declare class (or struct) members in any order you wish. In other words, the C++ standard allows you to order member functions in a class declaration any way you wish, regardless of how good your approach is according to style guides.