Re: object used to convert a pointer to a c string

From:
Bart van Ingen Schenau <bart@ingen.ddns.info>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:33:48 +0200
Message-ID:
<1846781.InhvYjMPeN@ingen.ddns.info>
Vincent R wrote:

Vincent R a ?crit :

So here is my question asked differently :

in C++ (I insist) is it possible to write a kind of smart pointer
that when assigned from any type just copy the pointer EXCEPT when
it's a given type (for instance chat*).

something that would allow me to write :

IConvPtr iconvptr;

...
switch(ulPropType)
{
  case TYPE_INT: { iconvPtr = &(lpProp->val.iValue); break; }
  case TYPE_FLOAT: { iconvPtr = &(lpProp->val.fValue); break; }
  case TYPE_STRING: { iconvPtr = &(lpProp->val.szValue); break; }
  ...
}

iconvPtr.getPtr()


Stripping out all that windows stuff certainly helped your question,
because now I can understand what you are asking about. (And it is
indeed not OS-specific.)

so now don't tell me it's windows specific, ulProptype is a unsigned
long that tell me the type of the pointed value.
So what I want to know if it's possible to have a IConvPtr object
that could be assigned any kind of pointer and that would allow to
have a custom action when assigning from a const char*.


Yes, it is possible to write such a class, but there are a few issues
you need to contend with.
The most important one is *ownership*: As your class contains a pointer
to some data, who will be responsible for cleaning up that data when you
are done with it? Does this answer change for the types that need a
custom action?

Another one is copying of the IConvPtr object. Would that be allowed or
not? If allowed, should copying create a deep copy (i.e. also copy the
data pointed to)?

Do I need to write a assignement overload for every type that can be
assigned ?


No, you can write a templated operator= for the general case and provide
specific overloads for the types that need custom treatment.

Could templated class could be of any help ?


It could, but I wouldn't bother.

Finally I did this but I find it ugly because I have to explicitly
write code for each type I am assiging...

class IConvPtr
{
public:
IConvPtr(void* pVoidVal):m_ptr(pVoidVal)
{
;
}


You might want an additional constructor
  IConvPtr(wchar_t* pWstringVal)
  {
    // do your special thing
  }

IConvPtr& IConvPtr::operator=(void* pVoidVal) {m_ptr = pVoidVal;
return *this;}

IConvPtr& IConvPtr::operator=(CEBLOB* pBlobVal) {m_ptr = pBlobVal;
return *this;}

IConvPtr& IConvPtr::operator=(USHORT* pusVal) {m_ptr = pusVal; return
*this;}


You can collapse the assignment operators above into
  template <typename T>
  IConvPtr& operator=(T* pVal) { m_ptr = pVal; return *this; }

IConvPtr& IConvPtr::operator=(wchar_t* pWStringVal)
{
// Do something specific
return *this;
}
operator void *()
{
return m_ptr;
}

private:
void* m_ptr;
};


Bart v Ingen Schenau
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