I want to point something out to all developers that use M5 that was
prompted by a recent diff that I reviewed for Gabe. If people find
this worthwhile, I can stick this into comments in the file. Also, if
this could use some clarification, please let me know.
After you read what's below, think about this: should was start doing
something more along these lines?
typedef RefCountingPtr<Foo> FooPtrRef;
typedef Foo *FooPtr;
And ask people to use FooPtrRef in containers and FooPtr for function
arguments? The danger of this is that people could screw up. The
benefit is that forward declarations are easier.
Nate
--------------
When using reference counting (from base/ref_cnt.hh), we usually do
something like this:
class Foo : public RefCounted
{};
typedef RefCountingPtr<Foo> FooPtr;
We then use FooPtr EVERYWHERE. This isn't strictly necessary. In
reality, we only need to use FooPtr in places that store pointers.
i.e. member variables, and containers. It is perfectly reasonable to
use a "Foo *" when calling a function instead of a FooPtr (and it's a
little faster to boot). The point is, you have to think of a FooPtr
as something that holds a reference. When a function is invoked, the
caller is loaning the function a reference, so a FooPtr is
unnecessary. The FooPtr is only necessary if the caller wants to keep
that reference after the function returns. This is perfectly
reasonable code:
class FooContainer
{
FooPtr myFoo;
void
setFoo(Foo *foo)
{
myFoo = foo;
}
};
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