Re: Useless use of smart pointers

From:
alan_mckenney1@yahoo.com
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Mon, 8 Jun 2009 14:21:15 CST
Message-ID:
<802fded4-147e-4f3e-b77d-d5f718ad7c8d@u10g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 4, 2:46 pm, Matthias Kluwe <mkl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi!

class Obj;
class ObjStore1 {
public:
    const Obj* get( const std::string& filename );
    ~ObjStore1();
private:
    typedef std::map< std::string, const Obj* > store_type;
    store_type store;

};

const Obj* ObjStore1::get( const std::string& filename ) {
    store_type::const_iterator it = store.find( filename );
    if ( it != store.end() ) {
        return it->second;
    } else {
        std::auto_ptr< Obj > pObj( new Obj( filename ) );
        store[ filename ] = pObj.get();
        return pObj.release();
    }

}

In this implementation, ~ObjStore1 needs to delete the Objs:

....

1. One thing worth mentioning explicitly:
     the thread is titled "Useless Use of Smart
     Pointers", but the auto_ptr is not
     useless, it's there for exception safety.

     If the insert into the map throws, the
     Obj* will get deleted.

2. I agree with Maxim Yegorushkin that the
     original implementation is near optimal.
     IM-not-so-HO, none of the suggested changes
     improves the functionality in the slightest,
     they simply obfuscate what the class does.

3. The use of std::string as the map key caught
     my eye.

     It may not be an issue in the OP's applications,
     but in the code I work on, the use of
     std::string was a significant source of
     inefficiency, to the point that we ended up
     replacing it with something else in most
     of our code. Even comparisons ended up
     being an issue.

     Related to that, a question:

         Are string comparisons guarranteed
         (by the standard) not to throw?

     I couldn't find an answer to this in
     my copy of Josuttis.

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