Re: Silver bullet for C++ memory management ?
On Mar 19, 12:52 pm, MN <nguyent...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi there,
I've been using smart pointer to save my efforts on dealing with
memory management in C++. A sample of code is as below.
//////// begin of code /////////
#define PtrOf(X) boost::shared_ptr < X >
...
class Animal {
public:
Animal(const std::string& name) { _name = name; }
private:
std::string _name;};
...
PtrOf(Animal) animal(new Cow());
...
//////// end of code /////////
It has been worked well, however there are two ugly problems:
1) If we put the macro in a class interface, it's really ugly and
obstruct the clarity of the interface.
class Farm {
public:
Farm(PtrOf(Animal) a);
};
Why do you need that macro at all? What does it save you?
2. More seriously, if we have to use some 3rd party libraries which do
not use the same convention, instead using bare pointer, we have a
bigger problem to deal with.
There's nothing you can do with that. If an existing library uses
manual memory management, then it just does. You can still wrap raw
pointers it returns into smart pointers on your side (assuming you own
the pointer, of course), and, if the library provides custom deletion
functions, you can use shared_ptr deleter facility to automatically
invoke them. But that's about it.
My question is whether there is a way to address C++ memory management
to reduce it to a painless task ( as Java and C# ) without using 3rd
party garbage collector ?
First of all, your #2 is equally applicable to either Java or C# -
when using JNI or P/Invoke to deal with a third-party library that's
written in a language with manual memory management that exposes raw
pointers, you also have to deal with deallocation. In fact, the lack
of smart pointers (or facilities to create them) in those languages
makes the problem worse.
Also, memory management (and, in general, resource management) is
never a painless task, even when GC is involved. There is always some
form of trade-off, and none of them allow for seamless memory use.
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