Thread: Structure vs. Class

Essentially, struct and class are interchangable if we ignore visibility. Using visibility keywords allows us to "change one to the other":

Code:

struct x {
private:
...
};

is the same as

Code:

class x
{
...
};

And these two are the same:

Code:

class y
{
public:
  ... 
};

struct y
{
...
};

I personally prefer to use struct to indicate that the object is "plain data" and class to indicate objects that are not "plain data". "plain data" here means that there are no (explicit) constructors and no other member functions. That is a personal/company style choice, however, and others may have other opinions/thoughts on the subject.

--
Mats

Also along the lines of visibility, note that classes declared with the class keyword have private base classes by default (i.e., private inheritance is the default), while those declared with the struct keyword have public base classes by default (i.e., public inheritance is the default).

Originally Posted by Daved

>> I personally prefer to use struct to indicate that the object is "plain data".
It's not just you, this is a common idiom.

Good to know that I'm not alone!

--
Mats