Deep-copying a derived class when its base class has member pointers - c++

Question

I am trying to make a deep copy of the object d of class Derived as in the code below:
class A {
public:
int m_int;
A* clone() {
return new A(*this);
}
};
class Base {
public:
A* m_a;
virtual Base* clone() {
A* new_a = new A();
new_a = this->m_a->clone();
Base* clone = new Base(*this);
clone->m_a = new_a;
return clone;
}
};
class Derived : public Base {
public:
double m_dbl;
virtual Derived* clone() {
return new Derived(*this);
}
};
int main() {
Derived* d = new Derived();
d->m_dbl = 1.234;
A* a = new A();
a->m_int = -1;
d->m_a = a;
//clone d
Derived d_copy = d->clone();
//changing values of d's attributes must not affect d_copy
a->m_int = 10;
d->m_dbl = 3.456;
//check d_copy
cout << "m_int " << d_copy->m_a->m_int << endl;
cout << "m_dbl " << d_copy->m_dbl << endl;
}
output:
m_int 10 //wrong, should be -1;
m_dbl 1.234 //correct
As you can see, simply returning new Derived(*this) in Derived's clone() method is wrong since it does not deep-copy m_a.
If I "bring down" the deep-copying of m_a from Base to Derived then I will get the correct answer:
virtual Base* clone() = 0;
...
virtual Derived* clone() {
A* new_a = new A();
new_a = this->m_a->clone();
Derived* clone = new Derived(*this);
clone->m_a = new_a;
return new Derived(*this);
}
//gives out m_int = -1
If this is the case does this mean that each time I create further derived classes from Derived, I always have to "bring down" the contents of clone() to them?
Also, if for example Base has two derived classes Derived1 and Derived2, does this mean that I have to deep-copy the members of Base in each of them?
Any other ways to approach this?

Answer 1

You can consider of implementing the copy constructor that always is doing deep copy. In such case your clone implementation will always be trivial:
class Base {
public:
A* m_a;
Base(const A& other)
: m_a(other.m_a->clone())
{
}
virtual Base* clone() {
return new A(*this);
}
};
class Derived : public Base {
public:
double m_dbl;
Derived(const Derived& other)
: m_dbl(other.m_dbl)
virtual Derived* clone() {
return new Derived(*this);
}
};
If you don't want to change the behavior of the default constructor (you want the default constructor to make shallow copy for example) the alternative is to move copy implementation to a CopyTo method, so you can reuse it:
class Base {
public:
A* m_a;
static void CopyTo(const Base& from, Base& to)
{
to.m_a = from.m_a->clone();
}
virtual Base* clone() {
Base* result = new Base();
CopyTo(*this, result);
return result;
}
};
class Derived : public Base {
public:
double m_dbl;
static void CopyTo(const Base& from, Base& to)
{
Base::CopyTo(from, to);
to.m_dbl= from.m_dbl;
}
virtual Derived * clone() {
Derived * result = new Derived ();
CopyTo(*this, result);
return result;
}
virtual Derived* clone() {
return new Derived(*this);
}
};