Re: Merits of re-dispatching [LONG]

[dmitry@elros.cbb-automation.de (Dmitry A. Kazakov)]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:37:50 -0500, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>
wrote:

>Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> That is one of several possible interpretation of what happens in C++
>> using Ada terms. However, I prefer mine, because it is consistent with
>> the fact that the type tag [= vtab] is constant, thus the actual
>> specific type is also constant. Like in Ada it is only a view
>> conversion.
>
>It is not "one of several possible interpretation", it is what actually
>happens in C++! For implementations which use vtables, the compiler
>generates code to change the vtable pointer of the object as it runs
>through its chains of destructors. (Presumably the compiler may detect
>cases where it doesn't need to do this, but this is what happens in
>principle.)

Does the C++ standard require this? I do not know, but if yes, then
C++ is even "better" than I used to think. (:-))

I remember one C run-time library implementation, which had printf
modifying the format string and restoring it before return. It was a
GREAT idea. Unfortunately, the compiler allocated string literals in
the read-only memory. (:-))

Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov