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There is no pressing need for structures in C++. Anything you can do with a structure you can also do with a class. The only real difference is that structure members are public by default, whereas class members are private by default, but they both work exactly the same way otherwise. The struct keyword is retained for backward compatibility with C, but a C++ struct is not the same as a C struct unless it is has no interface and all the member variables are implicitly public.

Most C++ programmers will use structures to differentiate simple data structures (values) from fully-encapsulated classes (objects). The complexity of the data and its interface is usually the deciding factor in whether to use a class or a structure. For trivial classes the time and effort that goes into developing the interface is often unnecessary so a structure will often suffice. But if the class is to be distributed to third parties then it's better to provide a more robust interface, even for trivial classes, and to avoid C-style structures entirely.

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12y ago

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