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OwningPointer< T, Cloner, default_own > Class Template Reference

#include <allocatingpointer.h>

Inheritance diagram for OwningPointer< T, Cloner, default_own >:

[legend]Collaboration diagram for OwningPointer< T, Cloner, default_own >:

[legend]List of all members.

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Detailed Description

template<class T, class Cloner = CopyAsNominalType<T>, bool default_own = false>
class OwningPointer< T, Cloner, default_own >

Simple pointer-like class to hide whether the object pointed to is an external object with its own lifetime, or an object allocated and managed by this class.

The differences from regular pointer semantics are intended to be the following:

1) On construction a value may be allocated (if called with a scalar). 2) On destruction any allocated value will be deallocated. 3) When copied, the copy will only point to the same memory location if that location has its own lifetime, i.e. was an external object; otherwise a new object is allocated and set to have the same value as the original.

A few operations not supported by pointers are also provided, and not all operations supported by pointers have necessarily been implemented. (E.g. use (*ap). instead of ap-> for now.)

Using the default Cloner template argument, this class cannot be used with an object of an unknown type derived from the nominal templated type, since it needs to be able to create a copy of the object. If the objects offer a virtual clone() procedure, you can supply a different Cloner (e.g. CopyUsingClone) which supports copying of the actual types; this will allow unknown derived types to be supplied without fear of slicing.

Definition at line 63 of file allocatingpointer.h.

Public Methods
	OwningPointer (const T &value)
	Constructor for an internally-allocated variable.
	OwningPointer (T *value_pointer, bool owns_object=default_own)
	Constructor for a pointer to an external value.
	OwningPointer (const self &other)
	Copy constructor; copies other's pointer only if it refers to an externally-managed object.
void	operator= (const T &new_value)
	Override the underlying value with a new one.
self &	operator= (const self &o)
	Copy assignment.
	operator bool () const
	Conversion to Boolean; acts like underlying pointer.
const T &	operator * () const
	Returns the current underlying value.
const T *	operator-> () const
	Const pointer dereference.
T *	operator-> ()
	Pointer dereference.
T *	valueptr () const
	Returns a pointer to the underlying value; use with caution.
T *&	valueptrref ()
	Returns a modifiable pointer to the underlying value; use with extreme caution.
Operations that may be overridden by derived classes.
Could support clone() here except that the Cray compiler doesn't allow the return type to vary even trivially, and a type ValueGenerator was chosen for the standard return type.
void	relink (T *ptr)
	If our pointer is external, overwrite it with the given one.
Protected Methods
T *	allocate (const T &value) const
	Allocates and returns a pointer to a new item set to the given value.

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The documentation for this class was generated from the following file:

• allocatingpointer.h

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