How much functionality is “acceptable” for a C++ struct?

Question

My first post so please go easy on me!

I know that there\'s no real difference between structs and classes in C++, but a lot of people including me use a struct or class

Answer 1

I use classes and encapsulation when I need to maintain invariants and data integrity. If you have no invariants, and the data really is just a bucket of items, it has always been fine in our shop to use struct even if you add fancy helper constructors or functions. However the more you do decorate it, that should make you stop and think that maybe it should be a class.

If you do have to be POD compatible (for say interfacing to C code) you do still need to use struct. However you can wrap this struct in a class and expose it with a get() function for interfacing with C API's. Or create a helper function to return a proper POD struct from your class.