Re: precondition and post condition check

From:
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.language
Date:
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:24:56 +0100
Message-ID:
<13trsh0g7fcsje0@corp.supernews.com>
* George:

I am looking for a good sample about how to implement C++ pre-condition and
post condition check, but can not find a good sample code. Do you have any
referred ones? :-)

Since I can not find, I wrote the patterns in two ways, I am not sure which
is correct and if both are not correct, how to implement this pattern?

Sample code 1,

[Code]
#define MAX 1024

class Base
{
public:
    void foo(int i)
    {
    if (i > MAX)
    {
        // error handling
    }
    else
    {
        do_foo(i);
    }
}

private:
    virtual void do_foo(int i) = 0;
};

class Derived : public Base
{
private:
    virtual void do_foo(int i)
    {
    // i is never > MAX here
    }
};

int main()
{
    Derived d;
    d.foo (1000);

    return 0;
}
[/Code]

Sample 2,

[Code]
#define MAX 1024

class Base
{
public:
    void foo(int i)
    {
    if (i > MAX)
    {
        // error handling
    }
    else
    {
        do_foo(i);
    }
}

private:
    virtual void do_foo(int i) = 0;
};

class Derived : public Base
{
public:
    virtual void do_foo(int i)
    {
        foo (i);
        // i is never > MAX here
    }
};

int main()
{
    Derived d;
    d.do_foo (1000);

    return 0;
}
[/Code]


Why not try your code with a C++ compiler?

Also, with your latest questions it seems you're essentially asking the
community to /do your thinking for you/, since you evidently know all that's
required to find the answers for yourself (the same way responders have to do).

In passing, in C++ it's generally a good idea to avoid macros in favor of typed
constants, inline functions and templates.

Of course, but I don't think that's your intent here, the folks who respond here
know a thing or two and so can point you toward relevant things you perhaps
didn't know existed, like <url: http://www.google.no/search?q=aspect+c%2B%2B>
or, for invariant checking, <url: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/wrapper.pdf>,
or the DBC proposal for C++0x (try to find it).

If that's the kind of response you're looking for you'd be better off asking for
guidance about learning more about a given subject matter, e.g. "I'm currently
studying pre- and post-condition checking in C++; here's what I learned so far;
I'm interested in learning about possible other approaches".

Cheers, & hth.,

- Alf

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
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