dolfin team mailing list archive

["Matthew Knepley" <knepley@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/23/06, Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2006 at 02:57:27PM +0200, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> > What does everyone think about using some of the smart pointers from
> > Boost? Instead of
> >
> >   int* nodes = new int[element.spacedim()];
> >   element.nodemap(nodes, *cell, mesh);
> >   /*
> >      Do something
> >   */
> >    delete [] nodes;
> >
> > we would have
> >
> >   boost::scoped_array<int> nodes( new int[element.spacedim()] );
> >   element.nodemap(nodes.get(), *cell, mesh);
> >   /*
> >      Do something
> >   */
> >
> > In the end, it's pretty similar to std::vector, except it's a bit more
> > efficient since it's not designed to change size and we can access the
> > underlying pointer with get().
> >
> > Garth
>
> To me, it looks like code obfuscation. If you compare the two ways of
> writing, you remove
>
>   "int*", "delete [] nodes"
>
> and add
>
>   "boost::scoped_array<int>", ".get()", ".get()" (get in two places here)
>
> There are probably places where we could make good use of smart
> pointers, but here it looks to me like it just adds complexity.
>
> In our experience, just taking care of sizes is not usually enough. We
want reference
counting in there too, so we wrote our own (they do not have array sizes).
However,
I will note that you can remove all the get() calls with a suitably defined
cast operator.

 Matt
--
"Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one" -- Sir Alec
Guiness