Re: [boost] Interest in a simple buffer abstraction?

Subject: Re: [boost] Interest in a simple buffer abstraction?
From: Boris Kolpackov (boris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-28 10:22:35

Hi Robert,

"Stewart, Robert" <Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden]> writes:

> No you wouldn't.  As I showed in the portion of my reply that you cut,
> if your packet owns its data, then it would have a container of that 
> data.

Yes, which would involve having a data member of the std::vector<char>
type. Let me put it this way: if I want *both* to own the data and
have a convenient interface for it, I would have to have two members,
as I showed in my original code. Is that not so?

> When you want performance, you don't want to copy data. Your model
> requires that the data be copied.

If you want unsafe sharing semantics, you can always pass/store
references to the buffer instead of making a copy. For example:

class packet
{
  packet (const buffer& p): payload_ (p) {}
  buffer& payload_;
};

You also have the option of safe sharing with something like shared_ptr.

Boris
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