Consider the following program:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
typedef struct S_s {
const int _a;
} S_t;
S_t *
create_S(void) {
return calloc(sizeof(S_t), 1);
}
void
destroy_S(S_t *s) {
free(s);
}
const int
get_S_a(const S_t *s) {
return s->_a;
}
void
set_S_a(S_t *s, const int a) {
int *a_p = (int *)&s->_a;
*a_p = a;
}
int
main(void) {
S_t s1;
// s1._a = 5; // Error
set_S_a(&s1, 5); // OK
S_t *s2 = create_S();
// s2->_a = 8; // Error
set_S_a(s2, 8); // OK
printf("s1.a == %d\n", get_S_a(&s1));
printf("s2->a == %d\n", get_S_a(s2));
destroy_S(s2);
}
I'm not aware of anything particularly bad with this kind of design, but there might be impact when compiler is heavily optimizing the code and some considerations I'm missing.
Is it a good idea to use const
in C
as a mechanism of write access control in such a way?