Pimpl idiom vs Pure virtual class interface

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When writing a C++ class, it’s appropriate to think about whether it’s going to be

  1. A Value Type

    Copy by value, identity is never important. It’s appropriate for it to be a key in a std::map. Example, a “string” class, or a “date” class, or a “complex number” class. To “copy” instances of such a class makes sense.

  2. An Entity type

    Identity is important. Always passed by reference, never by “value”. Often, doesn’t make sense to “copy” instances of the class at all. When it does make sense, a polymorphic “Clone” method is usually more appropriate. Examples: A Socket class, a Database class, a “policy” class, anything that would be a “closure” in a functional language.

Both pImpl and pure abstract base class are techniques to reduce compile time dependencies.

However, I only ever use pImpl to implement Value types (type 1), and only sometimes when I really want to minimize coupling and compile-time dependencies. Often, it’s not worth the bother. As you rightly point out, there’s more syntactic overhead because you have to write forwarding methods for all of the public methods. For type 2 classes, I always use a pure abstract base class with associated factory method(s).

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