Re: Passing Temporaries to perform non const operations

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:31:19 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<e4ad4333-7c0f-4b66-ae68-334f068095db@f19g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 16, 9:03 am, Bart van Ingen Schenau
<Bart.van.Ingen.Sche...@ict.nl> wrote:

On Apr 15, 4:09 pm, joec...@gmail.com wrote:

Altering a temporary is perfectly legal, for example:

std::vector<int> vec(40);
std::vector<int>(4).swap(vec); //legal.

I am trying to get this same functionality, but within an
assignment operator, but can't seem to find a good way to
bind the temporary.

For example:

class Foo;
int main()
{
 Foo f;
 f = Foo(20);
}

#include <vector>
class Foo
{
public:
  Foo(int size=0) { m_data.resize(size);}

  // PROBLEM HERE. The temporary can't be bound to a reference to non-=

const

  // But if this were 'const reference', the swap function could not be=

 called using it.

  void operator=(Foo& foo)
  {
    m_data.swap(foo.m_data);
  }
  std::vector<int> m_data;
};

The only work-around I could think of was this ugly code:
void operator=(const Foo& foo)
{
  std::vector<T>* tmpVec = const_cast<std::vector<T>*>(foo.m_data);


This isn't legal. m_data isn't a pointer, and can't be
converted to one. Perhaps you meant to use '&', instead of '*',
in the above.

  tmpVec->swap(m_data);
}

Any better suggestions?


As long as move semantics are not yet available, your best
option is to use pass-by-value and hope the compiler optimises
out any redundant temporaries.

   void operator=(Foo foo)
   {
     m_data.swap(foo.m_data);
   }


But that doesn't have the same semantics. For some reason
(obfuscation?), he wants the assignment operator to modify the
object on the right hand side of the assignment as well.

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