Re: Initializing simple POD (members) / value_initialized

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:26:02 CST
Message-ID:
<6c5a0005-642c-4b48-a77b-ca4f2b6e4e5a@d34g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>
On 28 Aug., 15:18, Goran <goran.pu...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Aug 27, 11:38 pm, "Martin T." <0xCDCDC...@gmx.at> wrote:

So, I tried to come up with something myself. Feel free to comment!


OK...

[code]
//! struct value_init
//! Wrapper type, for numerical PODS or pointers
template<typename T>
struct value_init {
T x;

//! Default initialize to zero
value_init()
: x(0)
{ }


Yeah, we have a similar thing here at my work. We even added the
default value to the template, like so:

template<typename T, T Def=0>
struct value_init {
T x;

//! Default initialize to zero
value_init()
: x(Def) // Default value here
{ }
...

I'd say, yeah, why not?


Here are some reasons for why not:

1) It seems very unexpected for a user of value_init
that a different zero-initializer leads to a different
type.

2) value_init can only be used for integral types
and enumeration types, because of the usage in a
non-type template parameter.

If control of the default value is preferred, I suggest
a more general approach via an initializer trait class,
e.g.

template<typename T>
struct value_init_traits {
   static T zero() { return T(); } // Could be constexpr in C++0x
   ... // Other useful properties
};

template<typename T>
struct value_init {
T x;

//! Default initialize to zero
value_init() : x(value_init_traits<T>::zero()) // Default value here
{ }
};

This would allow users to provide type-specific
zero-values. If really an instance-specific
customization is preferred, I still would use
the traits-route instead like this:

template<typename T, typename Tr = value_init_traits<T> >
struct value_init {
T x;

//! Default initialize to zero
value_init() : x(Tr::zero()) // Default value here
{ }
};

This does not have the unnecessary restrictions to
specific types.

Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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