Re: Handling void*

From:
Salt_Peter <pj_hern@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 5 Nov 2008 16:12:27 CST
Message-ID:
<ae5afcf2-517a-4740-a197-7f6e2c660bea@d42g2000prb.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 5, 9:19 am, Daniel Blankensteiner <d...@trunet.dk> wrote:

Hi all

I have two questions I hope you can help me with.

1. What is the correct way of returning void*?
if I have:

void* creatClass() {
    return new Class();

}

Should I use reinterpret_cast?


No, you would use a static cast but thats not the better solution. Use
a template and you will not need void*'s. Basicly, void pointers strip
a compiler's ability to type check for you. Thats bad news.

#include <iostream>
#include <typeinfo>

class A { };

void* createA()
{
  return static_cast< void* >(new A);
}

template< typename T >
T* const createT()
{
  return new T;
}

int main()
{
  A* p = static_cast< A* >(createA());

  std::cout << "the object at *p is of type: ";
  std::cout << typeid( *p ).name() << std::endl;

  delete p // required

  A* p_a = createT< A >();
  // static_cast< void* >(p_a) here
  // do stuff

  delete p_a; // required

  std::cout << "Press ENTER to EXIT.\n";
  std::cin.get();
}

2. Can I at runtime check a cast from void* to a function(pointer)?

void func(void* f) {
    //f is a pointer to a function that I want to call, but I want to make
sure it is safe.

}


Template the above function.
You can't tell a program to bypass type checking and then expect
safety. Thats like removing the batteries from a fire alarm and
expecting the fire alarm to still notify you in case of fire. Think of
void* as evil, if you must use it, do it in such a way that it doesn't
compromise your code.

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