Advisable or not: properties for structs

Question

I have a struct type Vector that contains 3 float variables which the user can get and set. My question is would it be overkill to create a get/set property for each of the variables? Or would it be better performance-wise to make the 3 floats as public variables?

brad 0 · Answer

Clarity: Structs generally encapsulate state not behavior. (Otherwise it is suspicious why the programmer created a struct rather than a class though reasons are conceivable such as wanting it on the stack not heap.) And if the struct has no custom behavior maybe it is clearer if it has no custom code. Conciseness: If your property code does nothing special why write it? The source code for a struct would have to more than double to add code for all properties. Quality: How many bugs are in the code for a struct with no code?

kovan · Answer

as far as coding standards go in the instustry and from what i know if you have any properties or methods u should be using a class if you only have variables then u should use a struct i have never seen or heard of a professional programmer that uses methods and properties withing structs. infact way back i remember reading an article that a struct made is really just a class.

ssswamii · Answer

And why should I expose as public variables instead of get/set properties? Is it really that much faster? Throughout the .Net base class library for instance I see the Microsoft always created public get/set properties for their structs just look at System.Drawing.Size or System.Drawing.Point. Tell me why I should use public variables instead.

kovan · Answer

if you are going to use a struct then just keep them as variables if you are going to create a class then set/get is more approperiate.