Re: [Boost-users] [Intrusive] List Manipulation and Management

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Intrusive] List Manipulation and Management
From: Freddie Witherden (freddie_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-09-26 18:21:52

Hi,

On 26 Sep 2009, at 23:49, Stefan Strasser wrote:
> list.splice(list.end(),otherlist);
>
> boost.intrusive represents the nodes as STL-like containers, if you  
> need to
> port code that handles nodes directly you might be interested in
> *list_algorithms of boost.intrusive, but I'd recommend using the  
> containers.

Doesn't splice require otherlist to be a list? This seems to make it  
somewhat inadequate, as the docs make the list class out to be rather  
brittle (non-copyable and non-assignable), so returning a list from  
afunction() is not a option. I guess one can return a pointer to a new- 
ly allocated list, but that is another pointer to delete and more  
boilerplate code.

I would rather use the containers if at all possible, however, the  
design seems to be working against me in this scenario.

>> Secondly, when dealing with heap allocated items, which need to be
>> deleted, the current code uses a while loop to call each nodes
>> destructor. What is the intrusive equivalent?
>
> clear_and_dispose()

Excellent. In the library I am writing/porting it is sometimes  
necessary to return one of these lists. Naturally, one will want to  
return a clone of the internal list, however, what would be the nicest  
way to ensure its disposal? It may be somewhat haphazard to rely on  
users to call a specific dispose/delete method. Are there any  
exceptionally neat solutions to this?

Regards, Freddie.