NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/lang/c++-part1/1897

Text File | 1996-08-06 | 1.0 KB | 26 lines

Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Path: in1.uu.net!allegra!alice!ark
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Koenig)
Subject: Re: Destructors in functions
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
References: <4d7r65$[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 23:25:35 GMT

In article <4d7r65$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Weatby) writes:

> If you pass an object to a function, the language makes a bitwise copy of
> it, local to the function.  (Assuming no copy constructor is defined.)
> Then, on the way out, the function calls the user-defined constructor.

Not quite true.  If you don't define a copy constructor, copying an
object of that class is equivalent to copying its elements (which may
have their own copy constructors).

If your class has a non-empty destructor, it should have an explicit
copy constructor and assignment operator.  It is possible to imagine
exceptions to that rule, but they are rare.
--
                --Andrew Koenig
                  [e-mail]