Re: Question on use of "placement" new

From:
Thomas Richter <thor@math.tu-berlin.de>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Mon, 19 May 2008 06:06:17 CST
Message-ID:
<g0r7dv$ft0$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>
Martin T schrieb:

I do not like the solution where the flat data area starts "inside" the
object. I think you quite correctly point out that you would have to put
the element last and even then you're not really on the safe side.

I would rather place your fData2 member as a normal pointer inside the
object and have it reference memory just beyond the object. This way you
do not have to worry where your C++ implementation puts the fData2
member inside the object and its functionally still the same -- namely
that you have a "flat" object.

Also, there is the problem of telling the object how big the additional
memory is, which I've solved with a ctor taking the same argument as the
placement new.

I *think* my solution below is clearer, but note that this is the first
time I've ever done operator new/delete overloading so I may well have
overlooked something ...


Why the complicated way if there is a simple, easy and straight forward
solution?

class Foo1 {
    int fData1;
    Barr *fpData2;
public:
    Foo1(int count)
        : fpData2(new Barr[count])
    { }
    ~Foo1()
    {
        delete[] fpData2;
    }
    // operator= and copy constructor left as an exercise for
    // the reader
};

This is easy, doesn't require any overloading of operators, and can be
used exactly the same way as the hacky approach.

class ShmMan {
// Use this as a base class, so make the operators protected
protected:
  static void* operator new(size_t size) {
    return ::malloc(size);


What happens if malloc fails?
Where is new[]?

class Flat : public ShmMan {
  size_t datasize_;
  char* data_;

private: // Explicitly disable the normal new operator
 static void* operator new(size_t size);

public:
  // provide matching pair of new and delete:
  static void* operator new(size_t size, size_t datasize) {
    return ShmMan::operator new(size + datasize);
  }
  static void operator delete(void* p, size_t datasize) {
    ShmMan::operator delete(p);
  }


You also need to make operator delete(void *p) available or you cannot
delete the objects.

  // This ctor tells the object how big the additionally allocated
  // memory is:
  explicit Flat(size_t s) {
    datasize_ = s;
    // If this ctor is used, assume that there is sufficient
    // memory allocated just "behind" this:
    void* self = this;
    void* beyond_self = static_cast<char*>(self) + sizeof(Flat);
    data_ = static_cast<char*>(beyond_self);
    memset(data_, 0, datasize_);


Why does that do the right thing?

  }

  // assign data to our "flat" object:
  void assign_data(const char* str) {
    if(data_ && str) {
      memcpy(data_, str, std::min(datasize_, strlen(str)));
      data_[datasize_-1] = '\0';


Why does that the right thing?

So long,
    Thomas

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