Re: static_cast vs. reinterpret_cast

From:
"Matthias Hofmann" <hofmann@anvil-soft.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:11:28 CST
Message-ID:
<5n46k8Fg2s0cU1@mid.individual.net>
"Alan McKenney" <alan_mckenney1@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1191250929.511833.42950@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

On Sep 27, 12:46 pm, Kurt Stege <kurt.st...@siemens.com> wrote:

Alan McKenney wrote:

     Unfortunately, C++ considers "char" and "unsigned char"
     to be unrelated types as far as pointers to them go, so you can't
     do static_cast<const char *> on a "const unsigned char *"


Yes...

     So far, I know of no alternative that doesn't copy the data


I am using in these cases static cast(s), however, it does
not make things really better:

static_cast<const char *>(static_cast<const void *>(...))

This gets rid of the reinterpret cast, and covers the undefined
behaviour a little bit ;-)


    There was a recent thread on this, and the general
    conclusion was that your double static_cast was no
    better than reinterpret_cast<> in terms
    how well-defined the behavior is.


I remember a thread on this issue some time ago where the general conclusion
was that according to the standard, it is well-defined to convert a pointer
to any type to a pointer to char using the following functions:

// Converts a pointer of any non-const
// type to a non-const char pointer.
inline char* char_ptr( void* p ) throw()
{ return static_cast<char*>( p ); }

// Converts a pointer of any constant
// type to a constant char pointer.
inline const char* char_ptr( const void* p ) throw()
{ return static_cast<const char*>( p ); }

Example:

int main()
{
    SomeObject* pobj = ...;
    const int* pint = ...;

    // Convert non-const pointer.
    char* p1 = char_ptr( pobj );

    // Convert const pointer.
    const char* p2 = char_ptr( pint );

    return 0;
}

--
Matthias Hofmann
Anvil-Soft, CEO
http://www.anvil-soft.com - The Creators of Toilet Tycoon
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