| <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> |
| |
| <html> |
| <head> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> |
| |
| <title>Boost Function Object Adapter Library</title> |
| </head> |
| |
| <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> |
| <table border="1" bgcolor="#007F7F" cellpadding="2" summary=""> |
| <tr> |
| <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><img src="../../boost.png" alt= |
| "boost.png (6897 bytes)" width="277" height="86"></td> |
| |
| <td><a href="../../index.htm"><font face="Arial" color= |
| "#FFFFFF"><big>Home</big></font></a></td> |
| |
| <td><a href="../libraries.htm"><font face="Arial" color= |
| "#FFFFFF"><big>Libraries</big></font></a></td> |
| |
| <td><a href="http://www.boost.org/people/people.htm"><font face="Arial" color= |
| "#FFFFFF"><big>People</big></font></a></td> |
| |
| <td><a href="http://www.boost.org/more/faq.htm"><font face="Arial" color= |
| "#FFFFFF"><big>FAQ</big></font></a></td> |
| |
| <td><a href="../../more/index.htm"><font face="Arial" color= |
| "#FFFFFF"><big>More</big></font></a></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| |
| <h1>Member Function Adapters</h1> |
| |
| <p>The header <a href="../../boost/functional.hpp">functional.hpp</a> |
| includes improved versions of the full range of member function adapters |
| from the the C++ Standard Library (§20.3.8):</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><tt>mem_fun_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>mem_fun1_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>const_mem_fun_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>const_mem_fun1_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>mem_fun_ref_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>mem_fun1_ref_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>const_mem_fun_ref_t</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>const_mem_fun1_ref_t</tt></li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>as well as the corresponding overloaded helper functions</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li><tt>mem_fun</tt></li> |
| |
| <li><tt>mem_fun_ref</tt></li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>The following changes have been made to the adapters as specified in the |
| Standard:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The <tt>first_argument_type</tt> typedef has been corrected for the |
| <tt>const_</tt> family of member function adapters (see <a href= |
| "#firstarg">below</a>).</li> |
| |
| <li>The argument passed to <tt>mem_fun1_t</tt> and its variants is passed |
| using the <tt>call_traits::param_type</tt> for the member function's |
| argument type.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h3 id="firstarg">first_argument_type</h3> |
| |
| <p>The standard specifies <tt>const_mem_fun1_t</tt>, for example, like |
| this:</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre> |
| template <class S, class T, class A> class const_mem_fun1_t |
| : public binary_function<<strong>T*</strong>, A, S> { |
| public: |
| explicit const_mem_fun1_t(S (T::*p)(A) const); |
| S operator()(<strong>const T*</strong> p, A x) const; |
| }; |
| </pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <p>Note that the first argument to <tt>binary_function</tt> is <tt>T*</tt> |
| despite the fact that the first argument to <tt>operator()</tt> is actually |
| of type <tt><em>const</em> T*</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>Does this matter? Well, consider what happens when we write</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre> |
| struct Foo { void bar(int) const; }; |
| const Foo *cp = new Foo; |
| std::bind1st(std::mem_fun(&Foo::bar), cp); |
| </pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <p>We have created a <tt>const_mem_fun1_t</tt> object which will |
| effectively contain the following</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre> |
| typedef Foo* first_argument_type; |
| </pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <p>The <tt>bind1st</tt> will then create a <tt>binder1st</tt> object that |
| will use this <tt>typedef</tt> as the type of a member which will be |
| initialised with <tt>cp</tt>. In other words, we will need to initialise a |
| <tt>Foo*</tt> member with a <tt>const Foo*</tt> pointer! Clearly this |
| is not possible, so to implement this your Standard Library vendor will |
| have had to cast away the constness of <tt>cp</tt>, probably within the |
| body of <tt>bind1st</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>This hack will not suffice with the improved <a href= |
| "binders.html">binders</a> in this library, so we have had to provide |
| corrected versions of the member function adapters as well.</p> |
| |
| <h3 id="args">Argument Types</h3> |
| |
| <p>The standard defines <tt>mem_fun1_t</tt>, for example, like this |
| (§20.3.8 ¶2):</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre> |
| template <class S, class T, class A> class mem_fun1_t |
| : public binary_function<T*, A, S> { |
| public: |
| explicit mem_fun1_t(S (T::*p)(<strong>A</strong>)); |
| S operator()(T* p, <strong>A</strong> x) const; |
| }; |
| </pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <p>Note that the second argument to <tt>operator()</tt> is exactly the same |
| type as the argument to the member function. If this is a value type, the |
| argument will be passed by value and copied twice.</p> |
| |
| <p>However, if we were to try and eliminate this inefficiency by instead |
| declaring the argument as <tt>const A&</tt>, then if A were a |
| reference type, we would have a reference to a reference, which is |
| currently illegal (but see <a href= |
| "http://anubis.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_active.html#106">C++ core |
| language issue number 106)</a></p> |
| |
| <p>So the way in which we want to declare the second argument for |
| <tt>operator()</tt> depends on whether or not the member function's |
| argument is a reference. If it is a reference, we want to declare it simply |
| as <tt>A</tt>; if it is a value we want to declare it as |
| <tt>const A&</tt>.</p> |
| |
| <p>The Boost <a href="../utility/call_traits.htm">call_traits</a> class |
| template contains a <tt>param_type</tt> typedef, which uses partial |
| specialisation to make precisely this decision. By declaring the |
| <tt>operator()</tt> as</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre> |
| S operator()(T* p, typename call_traits<A>::param_type x) const |
| </pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <p>we achieve the desired result - we improve efficiency without generating |
| references to references.</p> |
| |
| <h3>Limitations</h3> |
| |
| <p>The call traits template used to realise some improvements relies on |
| partial specialisation, so these improvements are only available on |
| compilers that support that feature. With other compilers, the argument |
| passed to the member function (in the <tt>mem_fun1_t</tt> family) will |
| always be passed by reference, thus generating the possibility of |
| references to references.</p> |
| <hr> |
| |
| <p><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer"><img border="0" src= |
| "../../doc/images/valid-html401.png" alt="Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional" |
| height="31" width="88"></a></p> |
| |
| <p>Revised |
| <!--webbot bot="Timestamp" s-type="EDITED" s-format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->02 December, 2006<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="38510" --></p> |
| |
| <p><i>Copyright © 2000 Cadenza New Zealand Ltd.</i></p> |
| |
| <p><i>Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See |
| accompanying file <a href="../../LICENSE_1_0.txt">LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or |
| copy at <a href= |
| "http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)</i></p> |
| </body> |
| </html> |