[cppx] 3 ways to mix in a generic cloning implementation

To clone an object is to create a dynamically allocated copy of the object, of the same dynamic type, generally without knowing the exact dynamic type. The common way to do that is a virtual method, e.g. called clone, that simply invokes the type’s copy constructor. And the main problem with cloning in C++ is: how to reduce the extreme redundancy of zillions of essentially identical clone methods everywhere?

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[cppx] ZStr, an ownerhip transferring string type

The ZStr ownerhip transferring string class that I introduced in my first Xerces posting may have seemed like total overkill for the job. In C++98 it’s difficult to do correctly, and it requires some less-than-commonly available support machinery. And so if Xerces string handling was the only reason to do it, I wouldn’t have done it.

But once a string class like ZStr is available you (or at least I) find that it’s a natural first choice for many tasks. The beauty of it is that it allows you to defer the decision of trading efficiency for functionality, because the ownership can be transferred to an immutable sharing string type at any point. Or the string can be copied to a copying mutable string type like std::string, whatever.

With a type like ZStr, if you’re implementing library-like functionality, the decision of which “rich” string type does not have to be imposed on the client code. Instead of already trading away the efficiency you’re giving the client code the choice, including the choice of just using ZStr.

[cppx] Xerces strings simplified by ownership, part II.

In part I of this series I discussed Xerces’ UTF16-based string representation, a common deallocation pitfall for such strings, and how to convert to and from such strings correctly by using C++ RAII techniques. For the RAII techniques I presented one solution using boost::shared_ptr, and one more efficient solution using a home-brewed ownership transfer class, cppx::Ownership. And I promised to next (i.e. in this installment) discuss how to do it even more efficiently by using wchar_t strings as the program’s native strings, and detecting the minimal amount of work needed for each conversion.

[cppx] Xerces strings simplified by ownership, part I.

For Windows, where wchar_t corresponds in size and encoding to Xerces’ XMLCh, all that’s needed to convert from a wchar_t literal to Xerces XMLCh string is, at most, a little reinterpret_cast… But that won’t work on a system with 4 byte wchar_t or a system where wchar_t doesn’t imply Unicode. And although the non-Unicode systems are perhaps not your top porting priority, 4 byte wchar_t systems are common.

The wrapping that I start discussing in this posting, based on the cppx Ownership class, does a simple reinterpret_cast when it can (e.g. for a literal wchar_t string argument in Windows), and a dynamic allocation plus transcoding in other cases.

The Ownership wrapping of the result abstracts away the details of how the string is converted, and whether deallocation is needed. Thus, the calling code does not have to care. It gets raw null-operation efficiency where possible, and otherwise at least the same convenient notation + C++ RAII based safety. 🙂

[cppx] Ownership with custom deleter.

The cppx Ownership class is like std::auto_ptr with custom deleter and without implicit pointer conversions. In my next posting I’ll show how to use it to simplify dealing with Xerces strings, in an efficient way. It’s also convenient for many other things. 🙂

[cppx] C++98 constructor arguments forwarding (v2 posting).

OK, this is a version 2 of my last posting about constructor arguments forwarding in C++98… Anders Dalvander kindly pointed out (without using these words) that my initial motivating example was pretty silly since Boost already offers the functionality that I fronted as desirable, namely, since 2008, the boost::make_shared function. The original posting is still technically correct, and it’s still about something Practically Very Important™ that Boost apparently does not yet offer, namely reusable C++98-compatible constructor arguments forwarding. But my original posting (1) was sort of lying by omission, by not mentioning boost::make_shared, and due to that, (2) at least the casual reader would not care to read beyond the introduction! So herewith an updated version, with hopefully no lying by omission, and (cheers!) more examples & discussion! 🙂

[cppx] C++98 constructor arguments forwarding

Every time you dynamically allocate a new T object and give it to a boost::shared_ptr<T> for safekeeping, the boost::shared_ptr<T> will dynamically allocate a corresponding reference counter object. But dynamic allocations are usually Very Costly. So wouldn’t it be great if those two allocations could be reduced to a single allocation, a sort of cost-free boost::shared_ptr?

Uhm, well, yes? And one way is to specially design your type T to support reference counting and use e.g. boost::intrusive_ptr (unfortunately not adopted into C++0x). But this is an intrusive solution. And so it is not always applicable, and where it is applicable it may just transfer a runtime efficiency cost to a programmer’s time cost. So on reflection, while for the cases where it can be applied it is perhaps better than shared_ptr’s extra allocation, it’ not all that great a solution, really.

But wouldn’t it be even greater to have some non-intrusive shared pointer type like boost::shared_ptr that could manage this for you, a single allocation, without any special support from or requirements on your type T?

YES! 🙂

That means that you specify your type T constructor arguments to the smart pointer constructor, and let the smart pointer do the allocation. I.e. the smart pointer takes responsibility not only for destruction but also for construction. However, this requires constructor arguments forwarding, which is not supported by C++98.