Re: reference to non-const temporary

From:
Ethan Eade <ee231@cam.ac.uk>
Newsgroups:
comp.std.c++
Date:
Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:26:11 CST
Message-ID:
<eaas5m$519$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>
Frederick Gotham wrote:

If you pass either:

    (1) non-const reference
    (2) pointer to non-const

to a function, then that implies that the function is going to alter
something.

Logic dictates that you only alter something if there's a reason to.


But C++ does not otherwise disallow you from doing things that have no
logical effect. I can do this:

{
    auto tmp = make();
    use(tmp);
}

even though tmp is guaranteed to disappear just as in

use(make());

The problem is that I cannot see how to correctly write the "fill"
function shown below so that it can work on 'array's and 'array_slice's
(obviously this is a much simplified version of my problem):

//-------------------------------------
struct array_slice {
     int* x;
     int N;
     array_slice(int* x_, int N_) : x(x_), N(N_) {}

     int size() const { return N; }
     int& operator[](int i) { return x[i]; }
};

template <int N> struct array {
     int x[N];

     int size() const { return N; }
     int& operator[](int i) { return x[i];}

     array_slice slice(int start, int size) {
    return array_slice(x+start, size);
     }
};

template <class A> void fill(A& a) {
     for (int i=0; i<a.size(); ++i)
    a[i] = i;
}

int main()
{
     array<4> a;

     fill(a); // Works

     fill(a.slice(1,2)); // Fails
}

//-------------------------------------

- Ethan

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