AW: [std-proposals] Floating idea: grouping common function qualifiers to reduce syntactic repetition

You give the defaults at class level.

How to remove it for single members?

Perhaps better (if going with your idea) would be to do it more similarly to private: which can be changed to public: or protected: within a class.

public const:

private constexpr:

public virtual:

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Daniel Petrovic via Std-Proposals <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org>
Gesendet: Fr 22.05.2026 10:20
Betreff: [std-proposals] Floating idea: grouping common function qualifiers to reduce syntactic repetition
An: std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org;
CC: Daniel Petrovic <daniel-dev@hotmail.de>;
Hello all,

This is a floating idea intended to explore possible directions by extending the core language by (optionaly) reducing syntactic repetition in C++, not a concrete proposal.

Motivation

As C++ continues to evolve, functions increasingly accumulate multiple qualifiers (const, noexcept, constexpr, virtual, etc.). While each serves a clear purpose, the repeated spelling of identical qualifier sets across many member functions can make interfaces verbose and harder to read, especially for newcomers.

For example:
class A {
public:
  const int f() const noexcept;
  double g() const noexcept;
  void h() const noexcept;
};
The repetition here is mechanical rather than expressive.

Idea: qualifier grouping blocks

One possible direction would be to allow grouping of common qualifiers in a declaration block, with enclosed declarations implicitly inheriting them .

Illustrative syntax (purely hypothetical):
class A {
public const noexcept: // note: const is for the object const'nes 
  const int f();
  double g();
  void h();
};
This would be equivalent to today’s spelling, but visually emphasizes what varies (the function names and signatures) rather than what does not.

Class-level qualifiers

A similar idea could apply at class scope for qualifiers like constexpr, when meaningful:
struct S constexpr {
  S();
  ~S();
  int f();
  int g();
};
Which would be equivalent to:
struct S {
  constexpr S();
  constexpr ~S();
  constexpr int f();
  constexpr int g();
};
This could be seen as analogous to how access specifiers already work at block scope.

Potential benefits

Reduces visual noise caused by repetitive qualifiers
Improves readability of interfaces with many similarly-qualified members
Makes class declarations less intimidating to newer developers
Encourages consistency (qualifiers are declared once, not copied)

Open questions / concerns

Which qualifiers would be eligible? (const, noexcept, constexpr, virtual, others?)
Interaction with overrides, ref-qualifiers, attributes, and trailing requires-clauses
Parsing complexity
Whether this meaningfully improves clarity compared to existing verbosity
Risk of hiding important semantics “far away” from the function declaration

Prior art / comparison

This idea is conceptually similar to:

Access specifier blocks (public:, private: or Qt signals:, slots:)
Attribute grouping in some other languages
Namespace-level defaults or pragmas

However, C++ traditionally favors explicitness at the declaration site, so this would represent a shift in style.

Intent

The goal is not to reduce expressiveness or weaken type safety, but to explore whether the language could offer a more approachable and readable way to express common patterns that already exist in practice.

I’m interested in feedback on whether this direction is worth exploring further, what pitfalls I may be missing, or whether similar ideas have already been discussed or rejected.

Thanks for your time.
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