#define private public - This blog considered illegal (13 Apr 2008)

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---+++ [[DefinePrivatePublic20080413][This blog considered illegal]] (13 Apr 2008)

<summary>
If you are a C++ programmer, my blog should give you the creeps. Sometimes because of what I write here,
I guess - but definitely because of its name. You are not alone. The first time someone told me about that
"<tt>#define private public</tt>" line which he had just found in our codebase, I didn't want to believe that
someone actually did that.
</summary>

But it was oh so true.

If I remember correctly, there was a reason for it - certainly not a good one, but a 
reason: Some experimental test code needed to access a class member which was declared =private=, and 
the author of that code wasn't supposed to change the class under test, or did not have 
access to it.

This disgusting hack was probably meant as a stopgap solution, but then remained in the code 
for way too much time - until it was re-discovered and became a part of our local programming folklore.
I was actually grateful for this hack - without it, I'd probably still be searching for a 
name for my blog!

And then, just a few days ago, I came across the following excerpt from the standard for
the C++ standard library ([[http://www.kuzbass.ru:8086/docs/isocpp/lib-intro.html][ISO/IEC 14882:1998(E)]],
section 17.4.3.1.1):

<blockquote>
A translation unit that includes a header shall not contain any macros that define names declared or defined in that header. 
<i>Nor shall such a translation unit define macros for names lexically identical to keywords.</i>
</blockquote>

Good heavens, my blog is cursed upon by the standard! Expelled will I be from the C++ community! 
Never will I be on a first-name basis with [[http://www.research.att.com/~bs/][Mr. Stroustrup]]! 
What have I done...

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