How to avoid having to write boilerplate accessor code

Question

I find, when coding C++ code, that I spend a lot of time writing accessor boiler plate code, such as:

class A
{
  int x;

public:
  auto x();
  void set_x(decltype(x));
};

The whole idea of implementing accessors revolves around being able to intercept read and write accesses to them. I stumbled on this library (I'm not the author). It really makes me wonder, if, to avoid having to write boilerplate code, one could/should just write something like:

class A
{
public:
  property<int> x;

  A() {
    x.setter([this](int){ /* setter code */ });
  }
};

My question is: What techniques are available to avoid having to write a lot of boilerplate code for getters and setters?

Answer 1

There is some discussion here and there about whether getters and setters are evil in general.

So, my strategy for avoiding boilerplate code: Try to avoid getters and setters. When in need of some pure data class I declare the (few) fields public. But in these cases I try to avoid giving them any other logic, I try to keep these classes as little as possible.

Also, read about tell-don't-ask, e.g. from Martin Fowler.