Re: [Dev-C++] Copy Constructors and Overloaded Assignment Operators

[Matthew H. <mhi...@sy...>]

Hello Ioannis,

>To clarify things more.
>
>You passed as an argument a const object of type Test. The member
>functions of type Test that can act on a const object are only const
>member functions. This applies of course to overloaded operators too
>since they are member functions themselves (well, when you define them
>as member functions). Do not forget to always declare all the
>"read-only" member functions as const.
>You can perform some magic on const objects using the mutable keyword,
>but i do not think you have reached that level of consciousness yet. :)
>  
>
No probably not.  However, I've got enough to get me going for now. 8-)

Thanks for the explanation.  const for const... Another rule to tag on 
to using static members for
callbacks.

>Another interesting thing is that member functions of an object can
>access the private part of objects of the same type.
>
>
>So instead of that:
>
>  
>
>>// Operator =
>>Test& Test::operator=(const Test& Test2){
>>     data = Test2.getData();
>>     data2 = Test2.getData2();
>>    
>>     return *this;
>>    
>>
>
>
>you can do directly that:
>
>
>// Operator =
>Test& Test::operator=(const Test& Test2){
>      data = Test2.data;
>      data2 = Test2.data2;
>     
>      return *this;
>}
>  
>
True.  The only thing I don't like about that is that any validation 
I've put
in place doesn't get triggered.  I know by that stage in the game that
everything should be okay... but if there are some triggers (like logging,
computation, etc.... I'd lose them).  I mean, I could use an initializer 
list
too, right?  (That always seemed counter-intuitive to me though...
Decreases legibility, unless you're used to it... and same problem as
above...).

Now, speaking of class members, how would you persist state?

In VB (the realm I come from... well, there was Pascal those many
years ago 8-), I would use a Type (read struct) to hold my data.
This allows for quick memory copies to restore defaults/back out
changes... In C++ I can also see it making serialization a little
easier (convert to a char array/string and dump to disk).

Any thoughts on alternative measures to accomplish the same?

(I'm playing with a few projects that might make use of something
like this, but want to make sure that I'm not  starting off on the
wrong foot...)

>Keep coding,
>  
>
I will. 8-)