Click here to Skip to main content
15,867,704 members
Articles / Programming Languages / C++

Single point construction of hierarchical objects in C++

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.59/5 (24 votes)
1 Dec 2010CPOL2 min read 40.3K   33   17
Prohibit construction of hierarchical objects both on the heap and on the stack, and allow construction from a single construction point in the base class.

Introduction

As it is well known, smart pointers with reference counting in C++ are responsible for sharing object pointers and managing their memory life cycle. When using smart pointers, it is assumed that an internal object pointer that is managed by a smart pointer is not accessible outside the smart pointer. Accessing the internal object pointer outside the smart pointer may lead to an accidental pointer deletion and subsequent memory problems. In order to avoid such problems, it would be great to allow object pointer creation only within the smart pointer and forbid its creation outside the smart pointer.

Background

In one of my projects, we built a framework that introduced a bunch of base classes that the framework works with. The framework makes use of only smart pointers created from these base classes for controlling the class object's memory life cycle. The user may extend the framework by subclassing these base classes; however, the framework utilizes only smart pointers created from these derived user classes. In order to avoid the memory problems described above, a request appeared to disallow derived classes construction on the heap (pointers) as well as on the stack (it is a 'nice to have' ability) and allow only derived class' smart pointer construction. All this has to be done by means of the framework without any assistance from the user; in other words, this should be enforced over the user derived classes.

Code overview

In this article, I show the code that allows the base class to prohibit its derived classes construction on the stack and on the heap from outside the base class and enforce all derived classes to be constructed from a single construction point within the base class.

Here is an example of the Base class that achieves the declared goal:

C++
class Base
{
public:
    class ForbidConstruction
    {            
    private:
        ForbidConstruction()
        {}

        ForbidConstruction(const ForbidConstruction&);
        ForbidConstruction& operator=(const ForbidConstruction&);

        friend class Base;    
    };   
    
    Base(const ForbidConstruction& /* dummy parameter */)
    {
        // Do some construction activity
        ...
    } 
    
    virtual ~Base() {}

    template <typename T>
    static   SmartPtr<T> create() 
    { 
        return SmartPtr<T>( new T( Base::ForbidConstruction() ) ); 
    }

private:
    Base(const Base&);
    Base& operator=(const Base&);
};

class Derived: public Base
{
public:
    Derived(const Base::ForbidConstruction& dummy, /* other constructor parameters */) : 
    Base(dummy)
    {
        // Do some construction activity
        ...
    }
    ...
};
 
int main()
{
    SmartPtr<Derived> derived = Base::create<Derived>();
}

The class Base has a public constructor that accepts an internal class ForbidConstruction reference. Note that the internal class ForbidConstruction has a private constructor and thus can be created only within class Base that is declared as its friend. Any class that is derived from the Base class should pass the ForbidConstruction object to the Base class constructor. However, the derived class is not able to construct the ForbidConstruction object itself, so the only option is to accept the ForbidConstruction object as the derived class' constructor parameter.

Since the ForbidConstruction object can not be created anywhere outside the Base class, the Derived object can be created neither on the stack nor on the heap (pointer) outside the Base class. So the only way to construct the Derived object is from within the Base class. The Base class provides a static templated create() method that creates the Derived object pointer and returns it wrapped within a smart pointer SmartPtr class.

With the above preparations made in the Base class, we are able to create a robust framework that does not suffer from an accidental derived class pointer deletion.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer (Senior) Marvell
Israel Israel
17 years experience software engineer at Marvell company in Israel.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
iamxyb16-May-13 1:43
iamxyb16-May-13 1:43 
Good Trick! Smile | :)
GeneralDerived class with constructor having parameters Pin
ck08157-Dec-10 22:48
ck08157-Dec-10 22:48 
GeneralRe: Derived class with constructor having parameters Pin
Gregory Shpitalnik7-Dec-10 22:53
Gregory Shpitalnik7-Dec-10 22:53 
GeneralRe: Derived class with constructor having parameters Pin
ck08158-Dec-10 2:50
ck08158-Dec-10 2:50 
GeneralMy vote of 4 Pin
Emilio Garavaglia1-Dec-10 21:11
Emilio Garavaglia1-Dec-10 21:11 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Emilio Garavaglia1-Dec-10 21:47
Emilio Garavaglia1-Dec-10 21:47 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Gregory Shpitalnik1-Dec-10 22:23
Gregory Shpitalnik1-Dec-10 22:23 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Arman S.6-Dec-10 7:02
Arman S.6-Dec-10 7:02 
GeneralRe: My vote of 4 Pin
Andy Bantly14-Jun-13 11:19
Andy Bantly14-Jun-13 11:19 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Galatei1-Dec-10 12:52
Galatei1-Dec-10 12:52 
Generalcongratulations Pin
MashaMariaD1-Dec-10 8:57
MashaMariaD1-Dec-10 8:57 
GeneralHm... :) Pin
Eugen Podsypalnikov30-Nov-10 20:55
Eugen Podsypalnikov30-Nov-10 20:55 
GeneralRe: Hm... :) Pin
Gregory Shpitalnik30-Nov-10 21:31
Gregory Shpitalnik30-Nov-10 21:31 
Generalsmart pointers pointing to local variables Pin
Skond30-Nov-10 5:18
Skond30-Nov-10 5:18 
GeneralRe: smart pointers pointing to local variables Pin
xComaWhitex30-Nov-10 21:13
xComaWhitex30-Nov-10 21:13 
GeneralRe: smart pointers pointing to local variables Pin
Galatei1-Dec-10 12:48
Galatei1-Dec-10 12:48 
GeneralMy vote of 5 Pin
Bhasker Kandpal29-Nov-10 19:38
Bhasker Kandpal29-Nov-10 19:38 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.