This would be a case where C99 style designated initializers would come in handy in C++. For example if you have a struct like: struct data { double w

This would be a case where C99 style designated initializers would come in handy in C++. For example if you have a struct like: struct data { double w; double x; double y; double z; }; You can then create a struct of that type using syntax like: struct data d = {.w = 1.0, .x = 1.0, .y = 1.0, .z = 1.0}; Then you could have your functions take a struct data as a parameter, and use designated initializers to have syntax for keyword parameters. I'm not sure why this feature never made its way into a C++ standard over the years.