Is it good practice to make getters and setters inline?

c++ performance inline getter-setter
Martijn Courteaux picture Martijn Courteaux · Jun 10, 2010 · Viewed 36.6k times · Source 
public:
     inline int GetValue() const {
          return m_nValue;
     }
     inline void SetValue(int nNewValue) {
          this -> m_nValue = nNewValue;
     }

On Learn C++, they said it would run faster. So, I thought it would be great to use on getters and setters. But maybe, there are some drawbacks to it?

Answer

JaredPar picture JaredPar · Jun 10, 2010

I don't inline anything until a profiler has specifically told me that not inlining is resulting in a performance problem.

The C++ compiler is very smart and will almost certainly automatically inline such simple function like this for you. And typically it's smarter than you are and will do a much better job at determining what should or should not be inlined.

I would avoid thinking about what to or not to inline and focus on the solution. Adding the inline keyword later (which is not a guarantee of inline BTW) is very easy to do and potential places can be found readily with a profiler.

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