Re: Operator () overloading, cannot return by value.

From:
newbarker@gmail.com
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 8 Sep 2008 02:17:45 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<a1940330-e033-47da-b6ab-7b0b177a9652@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
On 8 Sep, 08:53, fabian....@gmail.com wrote:

Hi All,

   Im a newbie to C++, I am trying to customize the vector template
STL to a template Class. My code is shown below. Im confused about
something and maybe somebody here might be able to help me.

   Lets say X is my vector, which contains 10 elements. I want to
assign elements indexed 2 to 5 to another vector Y, so I want to do it
like Y = X(2,5). So what I do is i overload the () operators, as
marked in (a) below. This creates a new intermidate Vector class Z,
via the constructor that is marked (b) below. The intermediate vector
class is returned to (a), which thens try to return by value. However
my memory always gets destroyed. This makes sense because I created a
variable which has scope only in (a).

   However, when I add to vectors X + Y, again an intermediate result
is created. This is done in (c) below. The X (lhs) argument is used to
call another constructor which then creates a copy Z, and adds Y (rhs)
to that copy Z. Now Z is then returned but it does not get destroyed.

   So to sum up, why does memory gets destroyed in the first case but
not in the second. And how to avoid this problem in the first case?

Thanks in advance.

/*------------------------------------------------
This is package for Vectors, Matrices (Template Class)
--------------------------------------------------*/
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <math.h>
#define to ,
using namespace std;

//********************** START: VECTOR *************************
template <typename TYPE>
class Vector {
        vector<TYPE> v;
public:
        //*******************************************************=

*

        // Selectors
        const TYPE& operator[](const int& k) const { return v[k];=

 } //default

[] indexing
        const TYPE& operator()(const int& k) const {return v[k];}
        int size() const {return v.size();} //returns the size

        const Vector<TYPE> operator()(const int& i,const int& j) =

<---- (a)

                return Vector<TYPE>(v, i, j);

        //*******************************************************=

*

        // Constructors and Destructor
        Vector() { };
        ~Vector(){ };

        //*******************************************************=

*

        //plus operation
        Vector<TYPE>& operator+=(const Vector<TYPE>& rhs){
                for (int k = 0; k < rhs.size(); k++){
                        if (k < v.size())
                                v[k] +==

 rhs[k];

                        else v.push_back(rhs[k]);
                }
                return *this;
        }

        //*******************************************************=

*

        // Copiers
        //copy constructors
        Vector( const Vector<TYPE>& val) { //copy constructor for
intermediate results (like x + y)
                for (int k = 0; k < val.size(); k++)
                        v.push_back(val[k]);
        }
        Vector( const Vector<TYPE>& val, const int& i, const int&=

 j)

{ <----- (b)
                //this constructor is used to create copy=

 when indexing a range

                for (int k = i; k <=j; k++){
                        if (k<val.size())
                                v.push_ba=

ck(val[k]);

                        else v.push_back(0);
                }
        }

        //assignments
        Vector<TYPE>& operator=(const Vector<TYPE>& rhs) {
                v.clear();
                for (int k = 0; k < rhs.size(); k++)
                        v.push_back(rhs[k]);
                return *this;
        }

};

//********************************************************
//plus operation
template <typename TYPE>
inline const Vector<TYPE> operator+(const Vector<TYPE>& lhs, const
Vector<TYPE>& rhs)
{
        return Vector<TYPE>(lhs) += rhs; <----- (c)

}

//********************** END: VECTOR *************************


Hi,

I took the code, added a method to populate the vector and then it
failed to compile. I changed the following:

const Vector<TYPE> operator()(const int& i,const int& j) <---- (a)
   return Vector<TYPE>(v, i, j);

to this:

const Vector<TYPE> operator()(const int& i,const int& j) // <---- (a)
{
   return Vector<TYPE>(*this, i, j); // <--- Changed to pass in
*this, NOT v
}

and it worked. Your code was passing in the member variable v but
there's no constructor on Vector for std::vector! I don't know how you
got it to compile??

The following program seemed to work okay and outputs "3,4,5" to the
standard output:

/*------------------------------------------------
This is package for Vectors, Matrices (Template Class)
--------------------------------------------------*/
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <math.h>
#define to ,
using namespace std;

//********************** START: VECTOR *************************
template <typename TYPE>
class Vector {
        vector<TYPE> v;
public:
        //********************************************************
        // Selectors
        const TYPE& operator[](const int& k) const { return v[k]; } //
default [] indexing
        const TYPE& operator()(const int& k) const {return v[k];}
        int size() const {return v.size();} //returns the size

        const Vector<TYPE> operator()(const int& i,const int& j)
        {
                return Vector<TYPE>(*this, i, j);
        }

        //********************************************************
        // Constructors and Destructor
        Vector() { };
        ~Vector(){ };

        //********************************************************
        //plus operation
        Vector<TYPE>& operator+=(const Vector<TYPE>& rhs){
                for (int k = 0; k < rhs.size(); k++){
                        if (k < v.size())
                                v[k] += rhs[k];
                        else v.push_back(rhs[k]);
                }
                return *this;
        }

        //********************************************************
        // Copiers
        //copy constructors
        Vector( const Vector<TYPE>& val) { //copy constructor for
intermediate results (like x + y)
                for (int k = 0; k < val.size(); k++)
                        v.push_back(val[k]);
        }
        Vector( const Vector<TYPE>& val, const int& i, const int& j)
{
                //this constructor is used to create copy when
indexing a range
                for (int k = i; k <=j; k++){
                        if (k<val.size())
                                v.push_back(val[k]);
                        else v.push_back(0);
                }
        }

        //assignments
        Vector<TYPE>& operator=(const Vector<TYPE>& rhs) {
                v.clear();
                for (int k = 0; k < rhs.size(); k++)
                        v.push_back(rhs[k]);
                return *this;
        }

        void add(const TYPE& t)
        {
            v.push_back(t);
        }
};

//********************************************************
//plus operation
template <typename TYPE>
inline const Vector<TYPE> operator+(const Vector<TYPE>& lhs, const
Vector<TYPE>& rhs)
{
        return Vector<TYPE>(lhs) += rhs;
}

int main()
{
    Vector<int> vi;
    vi.add(1);
    vi.add(2);
    vi.add(3);
    vi.add(4);
    vi.add(5);
    vi.add(6);

    Vector<int> copyVec = vi(2,4);

    std::cout << copyVec[0] << ',' << copyVec[1] << ',' << copyVec[2] <<
std::endl;

}

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