Re: How to Design an Application Programmers' Interface (API)

["E. Robert Tisdale" <edwin@netwood.net>]

Gregory Pietsch wrote:

> Of course not.  It was never an OOP language.
>
> That's because we C programmers don't even WANT
> any mechanism for hiding the data members.

They certainly do.

> In other words,
> a union of the real type with an array of int (or char) the same size?

No.
There are two definitions -- one private and one public.
Only library functions have access to the private type definition.
Application programs can only include the public type definition.

> Seems a little complicated.  Why don't I just write the program?

It isn't complicated.
You just write the program which 'include's the library header file.
When you've finished debugging and testing your program,
you simply define a C preprocessor macro
which selects the static inline functions
instead of the external library function prototypes and you recompile.

> Fine.  Whenever I write C++ programs, I'll avoid adding get/set methods.
>
> This is getting into OO philosophy more than anything.

No.  It's not just philosophy.
It's just good design practice.  Until you understand that,
you won't be a competent programmer in ANY language.