Sign Up

Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.

Have an account? Sign In

Have an account? Sign In Now

Sign In

Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.

Sign Up Here

Forgot Password?

Don't have account, Sign Up Here

Forgot Password

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

Have an account? Sign In Now

You must login to ask question.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.

Sign InSign Up

StackOverflow Point

StackOverflow Point Navigation

  • Web Stories
  • Badges
  • Tags
Search
Ask A Question

Mobile menu

Close
Ask a Question
  • Web Stories
  • Badges
  • Tags
Home/ Questions/Q 245197
Next
Alex Hales
  • 0
Alex HalesTeacher
Asked: August 17, 20222022-08-17T01:05:07+00:00 2022-08-17T01:05:07+00:00In: C++, c++11, constructor, rule-of-three, rvalue-reference

c++ – Rule-of-Three becomes Rule-of-Five with C++11?

  • 0

[ad_1]

I’d say the Rule of Three becomes the Rule of Three, Four and Five:

Each class should explicitly define exactly one
of the following set of special member
functions:

  • None
  • Destructor, copy constructor, copy assignment operator

In addition, each class that explicitly defines a destructor may explicitly define a move constructor and/or a move assignment operator.

Usually, one of the following sets of special member
functions is sensible:

  • None (for many simple classes where the implicitly generated special member functions are correct and fast)
  • Destructor, copy constructor, copy assignment operator (in this case the
    class will not be movable)
  • Destructor, move constructor, move assignment operator (in this case the class will not be copyable, useful for resource-managing classes where the underlying resource is not copyable)
  • Destructor, copy constructor, copy assignment operator, move constructor (because of copy elision, there is no overhead if the copy assignment operator takes its argument by value)
  • Destructor, copy constructor, copy assignment operator, move constructor,
    move assignment operator

Note:

  • That move constructor and move assignment operator won’t be generated for a class that explicitly declares any of the other special member functions (like destructor or copy-constructor or move-assignment operator).
  • That copy constructor and copy assignment operator won’t be generated for a class that explicitly declares a move constructor or move assignment operator.
  • And that a class with an explicitly declared destructor and implicitly defined copy constructor or implicitly defined copy assignment operator is considered deprecated.

In particular, the following perfectly valid C++03 polymorphic base class:

class C {
  virtual ~C() { }   // allow subtype polymorphism
};

Should be rewritten as follows:

class C {
  C(const C&) = default;               // Copy constructor
  C(C&&) = default;                    // Move constructor
  C& operator=(const C&) = default;  // Copy assignment operator
  C& operator=(C&&) = default;       // Move assignment operator
  virtual ~C() { }                     // Destructor
};

A bit annoying, but probably better than the alternative (in this case, automatic generation of special member functions for copying only, without move possibility).

In contrast to the Rule of the Big Three, where failing to adhere to the rule can cause serious damage, not explicitly declaring the move constructor and move assignment operator is generally fine but often suboptimal with respect to efficiency. As mentioned above, move constructor and move assignment operators are only generated if there is no explicitly declared copy constructor, copy assignment operator or destructor. This is not symmetric to the traditional C++03 behavior with respect to auto-generation of copy constructor and copy assignment operator, but is much safer. So the possibility to define move constructors and move assignment operators is very useful and creates new possibilities (purely movable classes), but classes that adhere to the C++03 Rule of the Big Three will still be fine.

For resource-managing classes you can define the copy constructor and copy assignment operator as deleted (which counts as definition) if the underlying resource cannot be copied. Often you still want move constructor and move assignment operator. Copy and move assignment operators will often be implemented using swap, as in C++03. Talking about swap; if we already have a move-constructor and move-assignment operator, specializing std::swap will become unimportant, because the generic std::swap uses the move-constructor and move-assignment operator if available (and that should be fast enough).

Classes that are not meant for resource management (i.e., no non-empty destructor) or subtype polymorphism (i.e., no virtual destructor) should declare none of the five special member functions; they will all be auto-generated and behave correct and fast.

[ad_2]

  • 0 0 Answers
  • 4 Views
  • 0 Followers
  • 0
Share
  • Facebook
  • Report
Leave an answer

Leave an answer
Cancel reply

Browse

Sidebar

Ask A Question

Related Questions

  • xcode - Can you build dynamic libraries for iOS and ...

    • 0 Answers
  • bash - How to check if a process id (PID) ...

    • 3 Answers
  • database - Oracle: Changing VARCHAR2 column to CLOB

    • 5 Answers
  • What's the difference between HEAD, working tree and index, in ...

    • 4 Answers
  • Amazon EC2 Free tier - how many instances can I ...

    • 0 Answers

Stats

  • Questions : 43k

Subscribe

Login

Forgot Password?

Footer

Follow

© 2022 Stackoverflow Point. All Rights Reserved.

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

    No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.