Implementing a "window" system and "no deletion of self" rule - c++

Question

I've been trying to program in C++ a sort of simple "window" system for use in a game, which draws windows that can have buttons, etc. in them in the game area (internal to the game's own graphics, i.e. not the OS's GUI windows). The window objects (call it "class Window" for here) have some methods for events like key press, and the ability to hook on a handler to be called upon receipt of that event.
Windows are (or will be) collected in a "window manager", and the window object will have "close()" member that would call the parent window manager's window-deletion routine to delete itself. An event handler hooked to, say, a button on the window might invoke this routine to close the window (think an "OK" box).
The trouble is this sounds like a "delete *this;" statement, which I've heard is a no-no. True, it doesn't do that directly, but the effect is the same: an object has a member function that brings about its own destruction (e.g. the "close()" function, or the event function that triggers the handler leading to the "close()" function being called.). If this is bad, then what is a better way to design this?

Answer 1

There is nothing wrong with an object deleting itself. You must simply tell the window manager to remove the window from it's collection and then delete. If you have the window manager delete the window object, that's even better.
If you really want to avoid this behavior, you can add a bool dead; to each window that initializes to false. When the window is to be closed, set this->dead = true;. Every frame, have the window manager iterate through it's windows and delete the ones that are dead.
Note that this solution still does not fix errors that arise from external systems that have a reference to the deleted window, but it does have the advantage of centralizing the deletion of windows.
I have designed many games' window systems, and in my experience, allowing windows to delete themselves is a very elegant solution, even if it is more error-prone.
A minimal example:
class Window
{
public:
void keyPressCallback(int c)
{
if (c == KEY_ESC)
{
manager.destroy(this);
return;
}
}
WindowManager& manager;
};
class WindowManager
{
public:
void destroy(Window* target)
{
delete target;
windows.erase(std::find(windows.begin(), windows.end(), target));
}
std::vector<Window*> windows;
};
As long as there are no remaining pointers to that window, this method is perfectly safe and semantically sane. When the window receives a signal to close, it closes itself.
The same example with the dead flag:
class Window
{
public:
Window() : dead(false) {}
void keyPressCallback(int c)
{
if (c == KEY_ESC)
{
dead = true;
return;
}
}
bool dead;
};
class WindowManager
{
public:
void cleanup()
{
for (auto iter = windows.begin(); iter != windows.end(); ++iter)
{
if (iter->dead) windows.erase(iter);
}
}
std::vector<Window*> windows;
};