- Since 'bool' and 'Switch' use the _identical_ input mechanism
(ie, both accept true/false, on/off, yes/no, none, 1/0), the main
reason to prefer one or the other is the output.
The output for Switch is as text (eg, "true"), whereas for bool
it is label (0 or 1). If the output is required for a dictionary,
Switch may be appropriate. If the output is not required, or is only
used for Pstream exchange, bool can be more appropriate.
- both autoPtr and tmp are defined with an implicit construct from
nullptr (but with explicit construct from a pointer to null).
Thus is it safe to use 'nullptr' when returning an empty autoPtr or tmp.
Improve alignment of its behaviour with std::unique_ptr
- element_type typedef
- release() method - identical to ptr() method
- get() method to get the pointer without checking and without releasing it.
- operator*() for dereferencing
Method name changes
- renamed rawPtr() to get()
- renamed rawRef() to ref(), removed unused const version.
Removed methods/operators
- assignment from a raw pointer was deleted (was rarely used).
Can be convenient, but uncontrolled and potentially unsafe.
Do allow assignment from a literal nullptr though, since this
can never leak (and also corresponds to the unique_ptr API).
Additional methods
- clone() method: forwards to the clone() method of the underlying
data object with argument forwarding.
- reset(autoPtr&&) as an alternative to operator=(autoPtr&&)
STYLE: avoid implicit conversion from autoPtr to object type in many places
- existing implementation has the following:
operator const T&() const { return operator*(); }
which means that the following code works:
autoPtr<mapPolyMesh> map = ...;
updateMesh(*map); // OK: explicit dereferencing
updateMesh(map()); // OK: explicit dereferencing
updateMesh(map); // OK: implicit dereferencing
for clarity it may preferable to avoid the implicit dereferencing
- prefer operator* to operator() when deferenced a return value
so it is clearer that a pointer is involve and not a function call
etc Eg, return *meshPtr_; vs. return meshPtr_();
