Re: using vector to encapulate a tree - non const copy constructors

From:
"James Kanze" <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
17 Nov 2006 07:35:06 -0500
Message-ID:
<1163758690.965280.234430@h54g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
terry wrote:

class mytree: public T, protected std::vector<mytree>{};


This comes up pretty often: vector<> requires a complete type as parameter
but 'mytree' above is not a complete type.


I think you are wrong on this - I am pretty sure this is corredct and well
withint he standard.


?17.4.3.6/2: "In particular, the effects are undefined in the
following cases: [...] -- if an incomplete type (3.9) is used as
a template argument when instantiating a template component."
It couldn't be any clearer.

FWIW: his code doesn't compile with one of my compilers.

In particular mytree's size is well defined in much the same way a pointer
is defined.


In particular, mytree's size is only defined after mytree has
been completely defined. And the size of a pointer may also
depend on the type---I've worked on machines where sizeof(char*)
!= sizeof(int*), for example.

  vector<> encapuslates a pointer to an aray stored on the heap


Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the implementation. (With g++,
on a 32 bit machine, the size of a vector<int> is 28, whereas
the size of a pointer is 4. So vector is more than just a
single pointer.)

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