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From: willer@carolian.com (Steve Willer)
Subject: Re: Hungarian notation
Date: 1996/05/23
Message-ID: <31a47e13.49044301@sqarc.sq.com>#1/1
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sender: news@sq.com (News Administrator)
references: <31999F43.41C67EA6@scn.de> <DrI6st.F65@eskimo.com>
 <319D2278.3F9A@netonecom.net> <4nr50r$jo2@ringer.cs.utsa.edu>
 <4nsgct$c3l@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <4nvn6s$c83@gaia.ns.utk.edu>
 <31a3aed9.441307817@sqarc> <4o1928$ngv@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>
organization: Carolian Systems, Toronto ON
newsgroups: 
 comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.modula3,comp.lang.modula2,comp.edu,comp.lang.eiffel
Date: 1996-05-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe) wrote:

>willer@carolian.com (Steve Willer) writes:
>>Neato! So I guess there is one and only one solution to the problem of
>>invalid pointers!
>
>Let me put it this way:
>	IUnknown::AddRef
>and	IUnknown::Release
>are _not_ the solution.

Certainly, I am far from being COM's biggest fan. But the point I'm
making is that garbage collection is not a perfect solution, nor is it
the one and only solution. No matter what the scheme (gc, ref-counting,
etc.), pointers can still get scrambled.

I have personally been quite successful with setting rules of ownership
and sticking by them. With the primary use of auto_ptrs and references,
I don't have problems with dangling pointers and the like. HOWEVER, in
order to properly use these different argument types without problems, I
either need a perfect memory or a good naming convention. I don't have a
perfect memory.

This setup won't work well in C, but it works very well for me in C++.
Here's the relevant part of my own coding standard:


1.	Function argument types

When designing function interfaces, keep these points in mind:

a)	All "input" arguments should be first, followed by
"input/output" arguments and then followed by "output" arguments. It may
be necessary to adjust this order to allow consistency with functions of
the same name, and default arguments may also force a reordering.

b)	Arguments must be declared const as often as possible. In other
words, restrict the argument as much as you can.

c)	In C++, if ownership of an object is being transferred, the
argument must be an auto_ptr passed by value. If ownership is not being
transferred, then the argument must be a reference. The only exception
to this is when it must be possible to give a NULL (obviously, the
argument should be declared as a pointer in this case). However, rethink
the necessity of a NULL-compatible argument before using a pointer
argument.