Re: Conditionally defining copy and move constructors

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 9 May 2012 17:25:03 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<joeq9c$fic$1@dont-email.me>
Am 10.05.2012 00:05, schrieb Andy Lutomirski:

I have a class template that should be, depending on its parameters,
nontrivially copyable, trivially copyable, or not copyable. It looks
like this:

template<typename Types...>
struct A
{
    A(const A&) { body here }

    // Members that contain one instance of each type in Types.
};

If the body is ill-formed, all is well -- A can't be copied. If all of
the types are copyable and at least one doesn't have a trivial copy
constructor, all is still well: A is copyable.

I want A to be trivially copyable, though, if all the types are
trivially copyable. The best I've come up with is:

template<typename Types...>
struct helper
{
    // if all types are trivially copyable, then
    typedef garbage type;
    // else
    typedef A<Types...> type;
};

template<typename Types...>
struct A
{
    A(const typename helper<Types...>::type&) { body here }

    // Members that contain one instance of each type in Types.
};

This works until I add a move constructor. Then I end up with:

template<typename Types...>
struct A
{
    A(const typename helper<Types...>::type&) { body here }
    A(A&&) { ... }

    // Members that contain one instance of each type in Types.
};

If the "copy" constructor is a real copy constructor (i.e. helper::type
is A), then it works. If not, though, then this is equivalent to:

template<typename Types...>
struct A
{
    A(const garbage&) { body here }
    A(A&&) { ... }

    // Members that contain one instance of each type in Types.
};

which is not copyable at all. What I really want is:

template<typename Types...>
struct A
{
    A(const typename helper<Types...>::type&) { body here }
    A(const A&) = default; // But only sometimes
    A(A&&) { ... }

    // Members that contain one instance of each type in Types.
};

which is ill-formed if helper::type is A.

Any ideas? The default template argument SFINAE trick doesn't work
because copy constructors can't be templates.


There was a similar question in a previous thread ("How to conditionally
disable a copy constructor?" in this newsgroup, about end of November
2011. One approach that works is to use base-classes via CRTP to control
this. From my reply this part may be of interest for you:

#include <cassert>
#include <type_traits>
#include <utility>
#include <new>

struct no_move_no_copy
{
  no_move_no_copy() = default;
  no_move_no_copy(const no_move_no_copy&) = delete;
  no_move_no_copy(no_move_no_copy&&) = delete;
};

template<class T, class D>
struct copy_move
{
  copy_move() = default;

  copy_move(const copy_move& rhs)
noexcept(std::is_nothrow_copy_constructible<T>::value)
  {
    static_cast<D&>(*this).copy_construct(static_cast<const D&>(rhs));
  }

  copy_move(copy_move&& rhs)
noexcept(std::is_nothrow_move_constructible<T>::value)
  {
    static_cast<D&>(*this).move_construct(std::move(static_cast<D&>(rhs)));
  }
};

template<class T, class D>
struct copy_no_move
{
  copy_no_move() = default;

  copy_no_move(const copy_no_move& rhs)
noexcept(std::is_nothrow_copy_constructible<T>::value)
  {
    static_cast<D&>(*this).copy_construct(static_cast<const D&>(rhs));
  }
};

template<class T, class D>
struct move_no_copy
{
  move_no_copy() = default;

  move_no_copy(move_no_copy&& rhs)
noexcept(std::is_nothrow_move_constructible<T>::value)
  {
    static_cast<D&>(*this).move_construct(std::move(static_cast<D&>(rhs)));
  }
};

template<class T, class D>
struct select_optional_base :
  std::conditional<
    std::is_copy_constructible<T>::value,
    std::conditional<std::is_move_constructible<T>::value,
                     copy_move<T, D>,
                     copy_no_move<T, D>>,
    std::conditional<std::is_move_constructible<T>::value,
                     move_no_copy<T, D>,
                     no_move_no_copy>
  >::type
{
};

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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