Should I use noexcept for getters always?

Question

Should I use noexcept method modifier for getters always in C++11?

I mean simple getters here that just return members. At least in all my getters I have here an exception can't possibly be thrown. One downside is that a getter gets too verbose:

const std::string& getName() const noexcept{ return name; }

The good side as pointed out in Stroustrup's book is that the compiler might do some optimizations here and there.

Answer 1

noexcept is a promise that is very hard to take back. For example, you could later do something as simple as change the return type to std::string (for whatever reason), but because that needs to allocate a copy of the string, it can throw.

So the standard went the way of "add noexcept only when it's necessary or highly beneficial", and I think that's a good rule to follow. The question you need to ask yourself is, will the callers of this method need it to not throw?

Answer 2

If there is a good chance that someone needs this noexcept qualifier, I would add it. If you do not add it, you have more possibilities to change the implementation (remember, this is the usual argument for setter/getter [and I'm not a fan of setter and getters]).

You usually need this "no throw" guaranty, if you need to call this function in a "rollback, recover from error" situation. For example if you want to call it from a destructor then your life is easier if it offers the nothrow guarantee (and noexcept is the modern way of offering that).

So, I wouldn't make a general rule to add it.