This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Object Operations
Some of the most basic operations in programming become more complicated when you’re dealing with complex data structures and objects. For example, when you want to copy or compare primitive data types, the process is quite straightforward. However, copying and comparing objects is not quite as simple. On page 34 of his book Effective C++, Scott Meyers devotes an entire section to copying and assigning objects.
The problems arise when comparisons and copies are performed on objects. Specifically, the question boils down to whether you follow the pointers. Regardless, there should be a way to copy an object. Again, this is not as simple as it might seem. Because objects can contain references, these reference trees must be followed to do a valid copy (if you truly want to do a deep copy).
To illustrate, in Figure 3.8, if you do a simple copy of the object (called a bitwise copy), only the references are copied—not any of the actual objects. Thus, both objects (the original and the copy) will reference (point to) the same objects. To perform a complete copy, in which all reference objects are copied, you must write code to create all the subobjects.
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Figure 3.8. Following object references.
This problem also manifests itself when comparing objects. As with the copy function, this is not as simple as it might seem. Because objects contain references, these reference trees must be followed to do a valid comparison of objects. In most cases, languages provide a default mechanism to compare objects. As is usually the case, do not count on the default mechanism. When designing a class, you should consider providing a comparison function in your class that you know will behave as you want it to.