[Boost-users] serialization gives memory leaks due to throwing constructors

From: gast128 (gast128_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-01 14:18:49

Dear all,

I ran into an exception thrown by the constructor. But there is no way to 
call 'delete_created_pointers' on the object since the object is never fully 
created (see below)

Is there something to do about?

void Foo()
{
    std::vector<Bus>  v(2); //from the examples
    std::stringstream sstr;

    //save
    try
    {
        _ASSERT(sstr.good());
        
        boost::archive::xml_oarchive oa(sstr);
        oa << BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(v);
    }
    catch (boost::archive::archive_exception& re)
    {
        DBG_TRACEN(re.what());
    }

    //load
    v.clear();
    //sstr.seekg(0);
    sstr.seekg(1);  //generate dileberate error

    boost::archive::xml_iarchive* p = NULL;
    
    try
    {
        _ASSERT(sstr.good());
        
        boost::archive::xml_iarchive ia(sstr);
        p = &ia;
        
        ia >> BOOST_SERIALIZATION_NVP(v);
    }
    catch (boost::archive::archive_exception& re)
    {
        DBG_TRACEN(re.what());

        //won't work: p is always NULL
        if (p)
        {
            p->delete_created_pointers();
        }
    }
}

This throwing c++ constructor stuff is btw the way to transport errors 
according to a lot of c++ gurus. But my persnonal opinion is that it sucks. 
Every created object must be guarded with exception safety. For large 
applications, this exception mecahnism is very tricky and sources for a lot 
unwanted application terminations or memory leaks.

Wkr 
me