Re: class member access operator (->) overloading

From:
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 12 May 2009 16:39:03 +0200
Message-ID:
<guc1qe$225$1@news.motzarella.org>
* Victor Bazarov:

SG wrote:

On 12 Mai, 15:23, Arkaitz Jimenez <Arkai...@gmail.com> wrote:

For what I've seen around the operator-> is normally overloaded to
return the inner pointer in the case of a SmartPointer template.
However I was wondering if there is any way of having control after
the access was done, you can always execute code before returning the
pointer but obviously you can't after return.
So, is there anyway to get control before and after operator-> has its
effect?


Something like this?

  struct do_nothing { void pre(){}; void post(){} };

  template<typename T, typename U = T*,
    typename prepost_func = do_nothing>
  class ptrproxy
  {
    T* ptr;
  public:
    explicit ptrproxy(T* p) : ptr(p)
    { prepost_func().pre(); }

    ~ptrproxy()
    { prepost_func().post(); }

    U operator->() const {return U(ptr);}
  };

  template<typename T, typename PrePost>
  struct funky_pointer_metaf {
    typedef ptrproxy<T,ptrproxy<T,T*,PrePost> > type;
  };

  #include <iostream>

  struct S {
    void blah()
    { std::cout << " --- S::blah ---\n"; }
  };

  struct my_prepost {
    void pre() { std::cout << "prior access\n"; }
    void post() { std::cout << "after access\n"; }
  };

  int main() {
    S s;
    typedef funky_pointer_metaf<S,my_prepost>::type funky_t;
    funky_t p (&s);
    p->blah();
    p->blah();
  }

which outputs:

  prior access
   --- S::blah ---
  after access
  prior access
   --- S::blah ---
  after access

?


Nice!

It takes advantage of the extra indirection of the operator-> to return
the proxy temporary which will call the post-processing stuff in its
destructor that will be called *at the end of full expression*. I
thought about this, but hadn't find the *temporary* solution, for some
reason I was hung up on local objects, which get destroyed before the
final operator-> is used...

Thank you.


SG didn't provide a reference, but Bjarne once wrote a paper about exactly the
above technique.

So, let's also thank Bjarne Stroustrup.

Of course, some soul that-I-don't-recall-the-name-of at Microsoft should perhaps
also be thanked for the "COM call interceptor" which, even though it's not only
system specific but also technology specific, for what it does is more general.

And then also thanks to the folks at ParkPlace for the even more general C++
language extension or preprocessor or whatever it was that provides general call
interceptors for implemention of cross-code concerns (like e.g. logging); they
also should be thanked for the Smalltalk project when they were at Xerox PARC.

Argh, I cannot remember the name for that last technique!

Cheers,

- Alf

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