I am trying to sort a vector of smart pointers to a class. I use a struct as the third parameter to std::sort with operator():
struct PhraseSmartPtrParseCreationComparer
{
bool operator()(const std::shared_ptr<Phrase>& a, const std::shared_ptr<Phrase>& b)
{
if (a.get() == nullptr)
return b.get() != nullptr;
if (b.get() == nullptr)
return a.get() != nullptr;
return *a < *b;
}
};
Once in a while, I get a segmentation fault where one of the pointers inside the comparing method points to an invalid structure; always one. The interesting bit is, just before the sort, all the objects are intact; I also tried modifying the function to remove the reference bit: const std::shared_ptr<Phrase> a, and it crashed elsewhere.
The call is nothing fancy:
std::sort(_detectedPhrases.begin(), _detectedPhrases.end(), PhraseSmartPtrParseCreationComparer());
Is there something I'm missing or I should be looking elsewhere?
I can't believe how fast it was resolved. Here is the explanation - thank you for your guidance and cues, #BoBTFish and #Jabberwocky.
Indeed, the reason was that the sorter was having it both ways. The result was not symmetric. That is, the same two items, when swapped, could sometimes produce the same answer. Unfortunately, because of the business logic, it was actually valid. It's basically a tree, and one of the comparison components was whether one item is allowed to be a parent of the other - and a situation when both could theoretically be parents of the other is valid. So I did not change that. What I did (and hopefully it's not bad taste) was to add this workaround (never mind the nullptr checks, they are not relevant):
struct PhraseSmartPtrParseCreationComparer
{
bool operator()(const std::shared_ptr<Phrase>& a, const std::shared_ptr<Phrase>& b)
{
return *a < *b && !(*b < *a);
}
};
Related
This code is for finding the intersection and union of two sorted lists. The sorted list in inherited from a list class with all the basic functions. The main question is what is the return type of the function.
Is it a pointer to a list or the list itself? How would i display the contents of that "pointer".
template <typename Object>
class sorted_list : public List<Object>{
friend sorted_list<Object>*& slUnion( const sorted_list<Object>& list1, const sorted_list<Object> & list2){
auto i=list1.begin();
auto j=list2.begin();
sorted_list<Object> un;
static sorted_list<Object>* newlist=&un;
while(i!=list1.end() && j!=list2.end()){
if(*i<*j){
un.push_back(*i);
i++;
}
else if(*i>*j){
un.push_back(*j);
j++;
}
else{ //if equal
un.push_back(*i);
i++; j++;
}
}
while(i!=list1.end())
un.push_back(*i++);
while(j!=list2.end())
un.push_back(*j++);
return newlist;
}
};
When the program runs, the "un" in main points to NULL.
int main(){
sorted_list<int> l1;
int i=1;
while(i<10){
l1.push_back(i++);
}
sorted_list<int>l2;
int j=1;
while(j<10){
l2.push_back(j);
j+=2;
}
sorted_list<int> *un = slUnion(l1,l2);
}
You should typically return by value, i.e. sorted_list<Object>. Newer versions of cpp guarantee you that they will not actually make a copy.
What you are doing right now is wrong, because it has undefined behavior. You are using un, which is on the function stack, and return a pointer to it. By the time the function returns un has gone out of scope and the memory location can have been reused. Just completely remove the newlist pointer and return un instead.
You also seem to be confused about classes, methods and functions. As it is, your method does not have to be inside a class, or, since it does not seem to use class state, it can be static, if inside a class. It also does not seem like it would have to be a friend. If you wanted to write this as a member-function, it would look sth like this:
sorted_list<Object>& unionWith(const sorted_list<Object>& rhs) {
// merge this and rhs w deduplication into temp, then swap temp with this
...
return *this;
}
I think what is likely your problem, is that you don't assign &un to newlist, but that you initialize newlist with &un. Initialization is only performed once for a function-static variable, so future iterations of your method just skip that line and the pointer points to where the original version of un was. Try putting the assignment on a different line. That should fix your immediate issue, but the solution with the static pointer is still really bad, because the pointer is shared by all instances.
now i have been making games for a few years using the gm:s engine(tho i assure you i aint some newbie who uses drag and drop, as is all to often the case), and i have decided to start to learn to use c++ on its own, you know expand my knowledge and all that good stuff =D
while doing this, i have been attempting to make a list class as a practice project, you know, have a set of nodes linked together, then loop threw those nodes to get a value at a index, well here is my code, and i ask as the code has a single major issue that i struggle to understand
template<class type>
class ListNode
{
public:
type content;
ListNode<type>* next;
ListNode<type>* prev;
ListNode(type content) : content(content), next(NULL), prev(NULL) {}
protected:
private:
};
template<class type>
class List
{
public:
List() : SIZE(0), start(NULL), last(NULL) {}
unsigned int Add(type value)
{
if (this->SIZE == 0)
{
ListNode<type> a(value);
this->start = &a;
this->last = &a;
}
else
{
ListNode<type> a(value);
this->last->next = &a;
a.prev = this->last;
this->last = &a;
}
this->SIZE++;
return (this->SIZE - 1);
}
type Find(unsigned int pos)
{
ListNode<type>* a = this->start;
for(unsigned int i = 0; i<this->SIZE; i++)
{
if (i < pos)
{
a = a->next;
continue;
}
else
{
return (*a).content;
}
continue;
}
}
protected:
private:
unsigned int SIZE;
ListNode<type>* start;
ListNode<type>* last;
};
regardless, to me at least, this code looks fine, and it works in that i am able to create a new list without crashing, as well as being able to add elements to this list with it returning the proper index of those elements from within the list, however, beyond that the problem arises when getting the value of a element from the list itself, as when i ran the following test code, it didn't give me what it was built to give me
List<int> a;
unsigned int b = a.Add(313);
unsigned int c = a.Add(433);
print<unsigned int>(b);
print<int>(a.Find(b));
print<unsigned int>(c);
print<int>(a.Find(c));
now this code i expected to give me
0
313
1
433
as that's what is been told to do, however, it only half does this, giving me
0
2686684
1
2686584
now, this i am at a lost, i assume that the values provided are some kind of pointer address, but i simply don't understand what those are meant to be for, or what is causing the value to become that, or why
hence i ask the internet, wtf is causing these values to be given, as i am quite confused at this point
my apologies if that was a tad long and rambling, i tend to write such things often =D
thanks =D
You have lots of undefined behaviors in your code, when you store pointers to local variables and later dereference those pointers. Local variables are destructed once the scope they were declared in ends.
Example:
if (this->SIZE == 0)
{
ListNode<type> a(value);
this->start = &a;
this->last = &a;
}
Once the closing brace is reached the scope of the if body ends, and the variable a is destructed. The pointer to this variable is now a so called stray pointer and using it in any way will lead to undefined behavior.
The solution is to allocate the objects dynamically using new:
auto* a = new ListNode<type>(value);
Or if you don't have a C++11 capable compiler
ListNode<type>* a = new ListNode<type>(value);
First suggestion: use valgrind or a similar memory checker to execute this program. You will probably find there are many memory errors caused by dereferencing stack pointers that are out of scope.
Second suggestion: learn about the difference between objects on the stack and objects on the heap. (Hint: you want to use heap objects here.)
Third suggestion: learn about the concept of "ownership" of pointers. Usually you want to be very clear which pointer variable should be used to delete an object. The best way to do this is to use the std::unique_ptr smart pointer. For example, you could decide that each ListNode is owned by its predecessor:
std::unique_ptr<ListNode<type>> next;
ListNode<type>* prev;
and that the List container owns the head node of the list
std::unique_ptr<ListNode<type>> start;
ListNode<type>* last;
This way the compiler will do a lot of your work for you at compile-time, and you wont have to depend so much on using valgrind at runtime.
Example:
bool isHeapPtr(void* ptr)
{
//...
}
int iStack = 35;
int *ptrStack = &iStack;
bool isHeapPointer1 = isHeapPtr(ptrStack); // Should be false
bool isHeapPointer2 = isHeapPtr(new int(5)); // Should be true
/* I know... it is a memory leak */
Why, I want to know this:
If I have in a class a member-pointer and I don't know if the pointing object is new-allocated. Then I should use such a utility to know if I have to delete the pointer.
But:
My design isn't made yet. So, I will program it that way I always have to delete it. I'm going to avoid rubbish programming
There is no way of doing this - and if you need to do it, there is something wrong with your design. There is a discussion of why you can't do this in More Effective C++.
In the general case, you're out of luck, I'm afraid - since pointers can have any value, there's no way to tell them apart. If you had knowledge of your stack start address and size (from your TCB in an embedded operating system, for example), you might be able to do it. Something like:
stackBase = myTCB->stackBase;
stackSize = myTCB->stackSize;
if ((ptrStack < stackBase) && (ptrStack > (stackBase - stackSize)))
isStackPointer1 = TRUE;
The only "good" solution I can think of is to overload operator new for that class and track it. Something like this (brain compiled code):
class T {
public:
void *operator new(size_t n) {
void *p = ::operator new(n);
heap_track().insert(p);
return p;
}
void operator delete(void* p) {
heap_track().erase(p);
::operator delete(p);
}
private:
// a function to avoid static initialization order fiasco
static std::set<void*>& heap_track() {
static std::set<void*> s_;
return s_;
}
public:
static bool is_heap(void *p) {
return heap_track().find(p) != heap_track().end();
}
};
Then you can do stuff like this:
T *x = new X;
if(T::is_heap(x)) {
delete x;
}
However, I would advise against a design which requires you to be able to ask if something was allocated on the heap.
Well, get out your assembler book, and compare your pointer's address to the stack-pointer:
int64_t x = 0;
asm("movq %%rsp, %0;" : "=r" (x) );
if ( myPtr < x ) {
...in heap...
}
Now x would contain the address to which you'll have to compare your pointer to. Note that it will not work for memory allocated in another thread, since it will have its own stack.
here it is, works for MSVC:
#define isheap(x, res) { \
void* vesp, *vebp; \
_asm {mov vesp, esp}; \
_asm {mov vebp, ebp}; \
res = !(x < vebp && x >= vesp); }
int si;
void func()
{
int i;
bool b1;
bool b2;
isheap(&i, b1);
isheap(&si, b2);
return;
}
it is a bit ugly, but works. Works only for local variables. If you pass stack pointer from calling function this macro will return true (means it is heap)
In mainstream operating systems, the stack grows from the top while the heap grows from the bottom. So you might heuristically check whether the address is beyond a large value, for some definition of "large." For example, the following works on my 64-bit Linux system:
#include <iostream>
bool isHeapPtr(const void* ptr) {
return reinterpret_cast<unsigned long long int>(ptr) < 0xffffffffull;
}
int main() {
int iStack = 35;
int *ptrStack = &iStack;
std::cout << isHeapPtr(ptrStack) << std::endl;
std::cout << isHeapPtr(new int(5)) << std::endl;
}
Note that is a crude heuristic that might be interesting to play with, but is not appropriate for production code.
First, why do you need to know this? What real problem are you trying to solve?
The only way I'm aware of to make this sort of determination would be to overload global operator new and operator delete. Then you can ask your memory manager if a pointer belongs to it (the heap) or not (stack or global data).
Even if you could determine whether a pointer was on one particular heap, or one particular stack, there can be multiple heaps and multiple stacks for one application.
Based on the reason for asking, it is extremely important for each container to have a strict policy on whether it "owns" pointers that it holds or not. After all, even if those pointers point to heap-allocated memory, some other piece of code might also have a copy of the same pointer. Each pointer should have one "owner" at a time, though ownership can be transferred. The owner is responsible for destructing.
On rare occasions, it is useful for a container to keep track of both owned and non-owned pointers - either using flags, or by storing them separately. Most of the time, though, it's simpler just to set a clear policy for any object that can hold pointers. For example, most smart pointers always own their container real pointers.
Of course smart pointers are significant here - if you want an ownership-tracking pointer, I'm sure you can find or write a smart pointer type to abstract that hassle away.
Despite loud claims to the contrary, it is clearly possible to do what you want, in a platform-dependent way. However just because something is possible, that does not automatically make it a good idea. A simple rule of stack==no delete, otherwise==delete is unlikely to work well.
A more common way is to say that if I allocated a buffer, then I have to delete it, If the program passes me a buffer, it is not my responsibility to delete it.
e.g.
class CSomething
{
public:
CSomething()
: m_pBuffer(new char[128])
, m_bDeleteBuffer(true)
{
}
CSomething(const char *pBuffer)
: m_pBuffer(pBuffer)
, m_bDeleteBuffer(false)
{
}
~CSomething()
{
if (m_bDeleteBuffer)
delete [] m_pBuffer;
}
private:
const char *m_pBuffer;
bool m_bDeleteBuffer;
};
You're trying to do it the hard way. Clarify your design so it's clear who "owns" data and let that code deal with its lifetime.
here is universal way to do it in windows using TIP:
bool isStack(void* x)
{
void* btn, *top;
_asm {
mov eax, FS:[0x08]
mov btn, eax
mov eax, FS:[0x04]
mov top, eax
}
return x < top && x > btn;
}
void func()
{
int i;
bool b1;
bool b2;
b1 = isStack(&i);
b2 = isStack(&si);
return;
}
The only way I know of doing this semi-reliably is if you can overload operator new for the type for which you need to do this. Unfortunately there are some major pitfalls there and I can't remember what they are.
I do know that one pitfall is that something can be on the heap without having been allocated directly. For example:
class A {
int data;
};
class B {
public:
A *giveMeAnA() { return &anA; }
int data;
A anA;
};
void foo()
{
B *b = new B;
A *a = b->giveMeAnA();
}
In the above code a in foo ends up with a pointer to an object on the heap that was not allocated with new. If your question is really "How do I know if I can call delete on this pointer." overloading operator new to do something tricky might help you answer that question. I still think that if you have to ask that question you've done something very wrong.
How could you not know if something is heap-allocated or not? You should design the software to have a single point of allocation.
Unless you're doing some truly exotic stuff in an embedded device or working deep in a custom kernel, I just don't see the need for it.
Look at this code (no error checking, for the sake of example):
class A
{
int *mysweetptr;
A()
{
mysweetptr = 0; //always 0 when unalloc'd
}
void doit()
{
if( ! mysweetptr)
{
mysweetptr = new int; //now has non-null value
}
}
void undoit()
{
if(mysweetptr)
{
delete mysweetptr;
mysweetptr = 0; //notice that we reset it to 0.
}
}
bool doihaveit()
{
if(mysweetptr)
return true;
else
return false;
}
~A()
{
undoit();
}
};
In particular, notice that I am using the null value to determine whether the pointer has been allocated or not, or if I need to delete it or not.
Your design should not rely on determining this information (as others have pointed out, it's not really possible). Instead, your class should explicitly define the ownership of pointers that it takes in its constructor or methods. If your class takes ownership of those pointers, then it is incorrect behavior to pass in a pointer to the stack or global, and you should delete it with the knowledge that incorrect client code may crash. If your class does not take ownership, it should not be deleting the pointer.
this is my first time using the list STL and i'm not sure if what i'm trying to do is possible.
I have class_B which holds a list of class_A, I need a function in class_B that takes an ID, searches the list for an instance with the same ID, and gets a pointer form the list to the instance in that list:
bool class_B::get_pointer(int ID,class_A* pointer2A){
list<class_A>::iterator i;
for(i=class_A.begin();i!=class_A.end();i++){
if((*i).get_id()==ID) {
\\pointer2A=(i);<---------------this is what I'm trying to do
return true;
}
}
pointer2A=NULL;
return false;
}
how do I perform this, is it possible to convert from iterator to instance ?
EDIT:
I'm using this function in a multi-threaded program and I can't return an iterator to the calling function since another thread might delete an element of the list.
Now that I have a pointer to my element(and lets say it's locked so it can't be deleted), and a different thread removed another element and performed a sort on the list, what will happen to the pointer I'm holding ? (I don't know how the list rearranges the elements, is done by copying the elements using a copy c'tor, or by another mean?).
Useless answer was the most helpful in my case (BIG thanks), and yes I should use a reference to the pointer since I'm planing to change it.
You should write this:
pointer2A= &*i;
Here *i returns the object whose address you can get by prepending & as : &*i.
Note that i is not same as &*i. See this topic for more general discussion:
Difference between &(*similarObject) and similarObject? Are they not same?
Anyway, I would suggest you to read the pointer itself as:
class_A* class_B::get_pointer(int ID)
{
//I assume the name of the list is objA, not class_A
for(list<class_A>::iterator i=objA.begin();i!=objA.end();i++)
{
if( i->get_id()==ID)
{
return &*i;
}
}
return NULL; //or nullptr in C++11
}
Or, in C++11, you can use std::find_if as:
auto it = std::find_if(objA.begin(),
objA.end(),
[&](class_A const &a){ return a->get_id() == ID;});
classA *ptr = NULL;
if ( it != objA.end())
ptr = &*it; //get the pointer from iterator
Make sure get_id is a const member function.
if(i->get_id()==ID) {
pointer2A=&*i;
return true;
}
iterators are designed to have similar semantics to pointers, so for example you can write i->get_id() just as if you had a pointer to A.
Similarly, *i yields a reference A&, and &*i converts that back into a pointer - it looks a bit clunky (it would be an identity operation if i were really a pointer), but it's idiomatic.
Note that this won't do what you presumably want anyway - the caller's class_A* pointer2A is passed by value, so only get_pointer's copy of the pointer is modified, and the caller won't see that value. Try this:
bool class_B::get_pointer(int ID, class_A *& pointer2A)
{
list<class_A>::iterator i;
for(i=class_A.begin();i!=class_A.end();i++) {
if(i->get_id()==ID) {
pointer2A=&*i;
return true;
}
}
pointer2A=NULL;
return false;
}
Now pointer2A is passed by reference, so the caller's copy gets modified inside your function.
BTW, you can read the parameter declaration class_A * & pointer2A right-to-left, as "pointer2A is a reference to a pointer to class_A".
If you have an iterator, you can get a raw pointer by simply dereferencing the iterator (which gives you a reference), and then taking the address of that (which gives you a pointer). So, in your case:
pointer2A = &*i;
This might seem like an odd, clumsy way to get a pointer, and it is. But you normally don't care about pointers when you are using the collections & iterators from the Std Lib. Iterators are the glue that hold the "STL" together. That's what you should be dealing with, by and large, rather than raw pointers.
The loop you've written above certainly gets the job done that you wish to accomplish, but there are better* ways to accomplish the same goal. (Better is a subjective term.) In particular, the <algorithm> library provides both std::find and std::find_if which do just what they say they do. They find something in a collection. find will find something that is equal to what you're looking for. find_if will find something that matches some criteria that you specify. The latter is the appropriate algorithm to use here, and there are two main ways to use it.
The first, more "traditional" approach is to use a functor:
struct match_id : public std::unary_function<bool, class_A>
{
match_id(int ID) : id_(id) {};
bool operator()(const class_A* rhs) const
{
if( id_ == rhs->get_id() )
return true;
else
return true;
};
/* ... */
list<class_A>::iterator it = std::find_if(objA.begin(), objA.end(), match_id(ID));
This approach works in C++03 or C++11. Some people don't like it because it is rather verbose. I like it, on the other hand, because the actual buisness logic (the find_if call) is quite succinct and more expressive than an explicit loop.
In C++11, you can use a lambda in place of the functor:
unsigned ID = 42;
std::find_if( objA.begin(), objB.end(), [&ID](const class_A& rhs) -> bool { return rhs.get_id() == ID; } };
There's a tradeoff here. On the pro side, you don't have to write 10 or so lines of code for the functor, but on the con side, the lambda syntax is funky and takes a bit of getting used to.
I'm having a problem in my c++ game related with the vector.
I want to know if theres any code that tells me if a vector still exists.
Example (x = a structure that I created):
vector<x*> var;
var.push_back(new x);
var[5]->Pos_X = 10;
And now what i want:
delete var[5];
if(var[5] still exists){
var[5]->Pos_X = 20;
}
What could be the code for var[5] still exists?
Unless you've actually set the pointer to null after deleting it, there's no real way to determine whether that slot in the vector contains a pointer to a live object or not.
So you'd need to:
delete vec[5];
vec[5] = NULL;
Then you could test
if (vec[5] == NULL)
to determine if there was "really" something at that location or not.
There is no code for that, not without extra careful work in your deleting process. If you store smart pointers you can do it like this:
vector<unique_ptr<x>> var;
// assuming you actually do add 6 or more elements to the vector
...
var[5].reset();
if (var[5]) { ... }
You could use var.size() to see if the vector contains a pointer at var[5], but that won't tell you whether the pointer is valid.
You could create a small wrapper class:
template <class T>
class wrapper {
bool valid;
T *data_;
public:
wrapper(T *d): data_(d), valid(true) {}
del() { delete data; valid = false; }
bool isValid() { return valid; }
T *data() { return valid ? data : NULL; }
};
std::vector<wrapper<x> > var;
var[5].del();
if (var[5].valid())
var[5].data()->Pos_X = 20;
Personally, I'd prefer to just ensure that all the pointers are valid all the time though.
calling delete you are deallocating memory pointed by that x*, so you still have pointer to some memory address that do not contain anymore what you excpected.
If you want to remove elements from vector consider using "erase"; then, if you don't want to erase but simply "cancel" the Nth element, structure is yours.. put some bool flag inside your structure.