Re: Calling a constructor from template class

From:
"Carl Daniel [VC++ MVP]" <cpdaniel_remove_this_and_nospam@mvps.org.nospam>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.language
Date:
Fri, 1 Sep 2006 22:13:53 -0700
Message-ID:
<ecIYW6kzGHA.4044@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl>
FredsFriend wrote:

Hi,

I have a template class defined something like the following.

template <typename T>
class ArrayClass

I want this class to call the constructor on a peice of memory
multiple times (so as to reuse the memory for different objects).
The code to do this not using a template looks like this.

struct TempStruct
{
  TempStruct() : i(0) { }
  int i;
};

TempStruct t;
t.TempStruct::TempStruct();

One would assume that the way to use this in a template would be

template <typename T>
class ArrayClass
{
 T t;
 void RunConstructor()
 {
     // t.T::TempStruct(); // ignore this line for a bit // line one
     t.T::T(); // line two
 }
};

However this gives you a compiler error

if you uncomment line one and comment out line two you don't get a
compiler error (when using TempStruct as the template argument).
However this defeats the purpose of using the template so is not a
good solution.

Note the destructor works correctly using the syntax.
    t.T::~T();

Any help would be appreciated, I can't seem to find anything doing
this or any help else where.


You're trying to exploit a bug (or extension - you pick) in VC++ that allows
you to invoke a constructor by name. According to the C++ standard, a
constructor does not have a name (for linkage purposes) and cannot be found
by name lookup.

What you need to do to be standard compliant is to use "placement new" to
invoke the constructor:

#include <new>

template <typename T>
struct ArrayClass
{
    T t;
    void RunConstructor()
    {
        new (&t) T();
    }

    void RunDestructor()
    {
        t.T::~T();
    }
};

void f()
{
 ArrayClass<int> ai;
 ai.RunConstructor();
 ai.RunDestructor();
}

Destructors, on the other hand, have names and can be found by name lookup,
so directly invoking the destructor by name is both legal and correct in
this instance.

-cd

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