[Lib2geom-devel] Using std::auto_ptr in Curve

[Krzysztof K. <twe...@gm...>]

Hello

There are several virtual methods in Curve which return Curve * (a raw
pointer). They must return a pointer, because they are defined in the
base class but return an object of a derived class.

I propose replacing all these returns with std::auto_ptr<Curve>, and
once we switch to C++11 - with std::unique_ptr<Curve>. This will allow
us to write things such as curve->portion(0.1, 0.9)->boundsExact(),
which are currently provided as redundant methods such as
boundsLocal(). Similarly, the parametrized version of nearestTime()
could be reimplemented as:

Coord nearest_time_local(Curve const &c, Interval const &i, Point const &p) {
    return i.nearestTime(c.portion(i)->nearestTime(p));
}

where Interval::nearestTime() is something I added just now, and defined as:

Coord nearestTime(Coord t) const {
    if (t < min()) return 0;
    if (t > max()) return 1;
    return (t - min()) / extent();
}

Any objections?

Regards, Krzysztof