The pimpl idiom is a C idiom where a header declares an opaque structure and prototypes of functions that take pointers to that structure. In C the OP example would look something like
// widget.h
typedef struct Widget_t Widget; /* opaque! */
Widget* Widget_Create(const string* pName);
Widget* Widget_Clone(Widget*);
void Widget_Destroy(Widget*);
void Widget_click(Widget*);
int Widget_clickCount(const Widget*);
const string* Widget_label(const Widget*);
// widget.c
struct Widget_t {
int clicks;
string *name;
};
// ... implementations of the functions from the .h ...
But in c++ we like to use methods on objects, and in order to do this, you need the class declaration in scope, which means your current compilation unit needs to have seen all of Widget's data members. In practice this means if you try to use "pimpl" in C++, you do something like the OP where there is a pointer to an opaque type inside your class.
However, this is not the same thing. Methods are called with a `this` pointer, which means every access to the internal structure adds a second pointer dereference. This is why this isn't the true pimpl -- it wastes an extra deref on every access.
You can get true pimpl in current C++ but it's a lot of boilerplate and heavily relies on compiler inlining. An implementation of the example from the OP: https://godbolt.org/z/6EznxeG1n . In practice this is too much work, hard to read, and so nobody does it.
For the c++ standards committee: please add an "opaque class" feature where the class can only define non-virtual method prototypes. Then the full class declaration, in the associated cpp file, could include its parent classes, actual data layout, and function implementations.