🚀 go-pugleaf

fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) writes:
>However, consider a closely related example:
>
>	const X* xp = new X;
>	// ...
>	delete xp;
>
>According to the ARM, this code was illegal - it was an error to delete
>a pointer to const.  However, the ARM never spelt out whether or not
>`new const X' was legal.  At the November 94 meeting in Valley Forge,
>Pa., the C++ committee decided to allow `new const X'; having decided
>to allow this, it was pretty much a requirement to allow deletion of a
>pointer to const, otherwise there would be no convenient way to delete
>objects allocated with `new const X'.  So that example is also legal,
>although some compilers may not yet allow it.

IMHO, this decision was a serious mistake, as before the decision, a
program that did not cast away const could not alter an object that it
only had a const pointer or reference to; now it can.  It can hardly
be argued that deleting an object does not modify it.

How many programmers would expect that the body of the function

void some_func(const char *);

might be

void some_func(const char * foo) { delete [] foo;}

I would hope that compilers at least emit warnings about this practice,
regardless of what mistake the committee might have made.

-- 
-- Joe Buck 	<jbuck@synopsys.com>	(not speaking for Synopsys, Inc)
Anagrams for "information superhighway":	Enormous hairy pig with fan
						A rough whimper of insanity
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