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

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-15 14:05:17

on Thu Mar 15 2007, gast128 <gast128-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:

>> >   I agree.  At my workplace we have a convention.  For heavyweight objects
>> > that would do interesting things in their constructors we instead use the
>> > alloc-init paradigm of Objective-C.   In this model, the constructor does
>> > simply non-error things, then a corresponding init (or even suite of init
>> > methods) does the interesting things.  This has the added benefit that the
>> > init method can be overridden in subclasses, and you don't need to
>> > re-implement all the behaviors.
>> 
>> The alloc-init paradigm _really_ sucks.  Instead of considering
>> exceptions in your constructors you end up having to guard all the
>> rest of the code with "what if this object failed its initialization?"
>> checks/handlers.
>> 
> I wouldn't use that strong words. At least you have the advantage to use 
> virtual functions which are not behaving like virtuals in constructors as the 
> orginal poster describes. Buschmann describes in 'posa' the use of MVC in this 
> way.

That's a small convenience, true, but it's hardly worth weakening your
class invariants to get it.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com