Re: Inheritance and offsetof

From:
"Francesco S. Carta" <entuland@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:26:44 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<3d72107b-2eb7-49db-9e02-80efd8f53ae0@p9g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>
On 21 Set, 20:51, "Francesco S. Carta" <entul...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 21 Set, 20:20, Marcel M=FCller <news.5.ma...@spamgourmet.org> wrote:

When I switch an existing project to gcc I get dozens of warnings
concerning offsetof. The code runs fine with and without gcc. Of course
this means nothing.

Example:

#include <stddef.h>

#define structoffsetof(type, base) ((int)(static_cast<base*>((type*)64)=

)-64)

struct A
{ int m1;
   int m2;

};

struct B : A
{ int m3;

};

int main()
{ A a;
   a.m1 = offsetof(B, m3) - structoffsetof(B, A);
   return 0;

}

test.cpp: In function `int main()':
test.cpp:16: warning: invalid access to non-static data member `A::m1'
of NULL object
test.cpp:16: warning: (perhaps the `offsetof' macro was used incorrectl=

y)

Of course, it is because B is no longer a C style POD type because of
the inheritance. But even if the memory layout is up to the
implementation the offset of m3 should be stable.

I use this in a wrapper to a C library which takes struct A* as type an=

d

requires relative offsets to custom components. I would prefer not to
use aggregation because A has many members and this would significantly
blow up the code.

Is it undefined behavior or is it only a warning?


I have no answer to your questions but I have a question on my turn:
isn't there any better way to achieve the same result other than using
those macros?

I mean, if you want the offset of B over its base A, isn't enough to
call sizeof(A)?

Also, to get the offset of a member over the base address of an
object, isn't enough to compute the difference between those two
addresses?

I feel a bit confused.


Also, I think that either there is a problem in your structoffsetof
macro or in my understanding of your purposes (likely so) because it
equates to zero while I would have expected it to equate to "sizeof
(A)".

About the other macro, "offsetof(B, m3) == (size_t(&b.m3) - size_t
(&b))" on my system, hence I cannot see the need for that macro, which
does castings all over the place.

Where exactly did I lose myself?

Francesco
--
 Francesco S. Carta, hobbyist
 http://fscode.altervista.org

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