🚀 go-pugleaf

jbuck@Synopsys.COM (Joe Buck) writes:

>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.

That's not correct.  Even before the decision at Valley Forge, it
was legal for a function to destroy a const object.  For example,
following code was always allowed (well, at least since Cfront 2.x):

	void foo(const T *p) {
		p->~T();
	}

So the guarantee that you are arguing should have been preserved
never existed in the first place.

-- 
Fergus Henderson             |  "Australia is the richest country in the world,
fjh@cs.mu.oz.au              |   according to a new system of measuring wealth
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh  |   announced by the World Bank yesterday."
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 |  - Melbourne newspaper "The Age", 18 Sept 1995.

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