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From: Mats Weber <matsw@mail.com>
Subject: Re: Safety of the Booch Ada 95 Components
Date: 1999/12/15
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Date: 1999-12-15T10:12:18+00:00
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Simon Wright wrote:

> I'm going to do a deep copy.
> 
> I have an object containing a pointer to the value that has been
> assigned, so I need to make the deep copy and then put a pointer to
> the copy in the current object.
> 
> If that fails, presumably because of memory exhaustion, I can
> 
> (1) make sure that the assignee has a valid but partial copy
> 
> (2) make sure that the assignee has a null pointer
> 
> (3) leave the assignee pointing to the value that has been assigned,
>     so that the copy isn't deep after all
> 
> (4) not bother

(5) raise or propagate and exception. I think this is the only right
thing to do. Being tagged, controlled types are passed by reference, so
you can also make sure the target of the assignement has a null pointer.

> In *none* of these cases is the assignee "valid". Whether that equates
> to being "corrupt" is a question I prefer to leave to the reader ..

How could it possibly be valid if memory is exhausted, in any
programming language ?