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Q&A Can I conditionally include class members without using #ifdef?

#ifdef sections can, of course, be used to include or exclude chunks of code based on some criteria known at compile time. One big problem is that when the condition is evaluated to false, the chun...

1 answer  ·  posted 6mo ago by Hyperlynx‭  ·  last activity 6mo ago by Angew‭

Question c++
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Hyperlynx‭ · 2024-05-08T07:17:11Z (6 months ago)
Can I conditionally include class members without using #ifdef?
`#ifdef` sections can, of course, be used to include or exclude chunks of code based on some criteria known at compile time. One big problem is that when the condition is evaluated to `false`, the chunk is not only excluded from the compiled code but *the compiler skips right over it altogether*. This means code in that skipped chunk won't go through the compiler's checks to determine whether it's still valid.

For the contents of a function, it's possible to get the best of both worlds using `if constexpr`. If it evaluates to false the compiler will exclude the body of the statement, but will still check that it's valid.

Is there any way to do this with member variables, though?

Say I have a `Widget` class that may or may not need a `FooBar` depending on whether or not we want that feature in one of the many products that uses `Widget`. I can do this:

```
class Widget
{
public:
  Widget();
  void doSomething();
  void doSomethingElse();

#ifdef HAS_FOOBAR
  void activateFooBar();
#endif

private:
#ifdef HAS_FOOBAR
  FooBar fooBar;
#endif
};
```

The advantage is that when I'm building the code for a product that doesn't have a FooBar, my `Widget` class doesn't have methods it doesn't need, and will also take up less memory due to the member variable being gone. But the disadvantage is that if I'm working on something for a product that doesn't have a FooBar, if I make a change that would break the code in `activateFooBar` I might miss it entirely until the next time someone builds for a product that does have a FooBar.

If `HAS_FOOBAR` were a `constexpr bool`, instead of excluding `activateFooBar` I could maybe implement it like this:

```
void Widget::activateFooBar()
{
  if constexpr (!HAS_FOOBAR)
    return;

  // ...
}
```

but then I still have the `fooBar` member, no matter what, and instances of the `Widget` class will always include it in the memory they take up.

Is there any nice, neat way to avoid this?
c++