Re: EXC_BAD_ACCESS during Copy Constructor

From:
Philip Lee Bridson <philip.bridson@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:59:07 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<0ad07561-19b2-464e-bda8-c4175478c4eb@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 24, 11:45 pm, Victor Bazarov <v.Abaza...@comAcast.net> wrote:

Philip Lee Bridson wrote:

Good Evening,

I have been writing apps in C++ for a while now but I have to admit
the below problem has stumped me - I would not consider myself an
'expert' but also I am not a novice. Any help would be appreciated.

I have a copy constructor which is defined as follows:

Object::Object(const Object& o) {


So, this is a constructor, right? Any member have been initialized yet=

?

  Probably not (you don't have any initializer list, do you?), so what
do you expect their values are? You compare '_internalObject', which
has some indeterminate value here, to NULL. Why would it be NULL excep=

t

by chance? Oh, it can be NULL if your 'Object' is static, yes. But =

you

don't usually copy-construct statics, do you?

        if (o != NULL) {


Your 'Object' has a conversion to 'int'? Why would you compare 'o' to =

0

here?

            if (_internalObject != NULL) {
                delete _internalObject;
                _internalObject = NULL;
            }


It seems you copied your *constructor* code from an assignment operator
or something like that. Well, don't. And if you do copy code from s=

ome

other place, you *should* examine it carefully to ensure that every line
of your code makes sense in the *new location of the code*.

            _message = ex.Message();

            if (o.InternalObject() != NULL) {
                _internalObject = new Object();
                _internalObject = ex.InternalObject()=

;

            }
        }
    }

When I get to the line that deletes the internal object (which is a
pointer that is initialized during the constructor)


It's NOT a pointer that is initialized to anything at the time you're
trying to delete it.

 > I get

EXC_BAD_ACCESS. I have debugged the app and I can confirm that I am
not calling a double free() and that _internalObject actually does
piont to something.


What does it point to? Anything you have control over?

The code from which the copy constructor is initiated is below...

Object * o = new Object();

        if (o != NULL) {Object p = *o; //etc....}


'o' is never NULL when 'new' returns it. 'new' throws if you don't hav=

e

enough memory (or if the constructor throws).

the app only crashes when I copy the object, all other constructors
are fine. Does anyone have any ideas what may cause this?


Yes, just like I told you above, since '_internalObject' is not
initialized to anything, it contains some random garbage that you make
the machine interpret as a pointer to something. The machine cannot
make sense of it, and you get notified.

This is what your code should look like:

    Object::Object(const Object &other)
      : _internalObject(other._internalObject ?
                         new Object(*other._int=

ernalObject) : 0)

    {
    }

And just for completeness' sake, read about "the Rule of Three" if you
haven't yet.

V
--
Please remove capital 'A's when replying by e-mail
I do not respond to top-posted replies, please don't ask


Thanks all for the advice. Your posts were very helpful. I understand
why I was going wrong now and I will ammend the lines that are causing
the issue. Kind Regards, Phil.

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