Re: pointers to object questions

[Eljay Love-Jensen <eljay at adobe dot com>]

Hi Andre,

Your question is off-topic for this forum, as it is not a GCC related 
question.  Rather, it is a C++ related question.

Given that, here's my advice.

#1...
Is NULL allowed to be passed into Sender::Sender(Connector* newConnector)?

If not, then I recommend you change it to Sender::Sender(Connector& 
newConnector).  That also means changing Sender's member variable from 
"Connector* theConnector" to "Connector& theConnector", and doing the 
initialization in the Sender::Sender's initialization list.

Note:  if "Connector" is the root of a hierarchy of different kinds of 
connectors, you may run into some issues for non-const reference 
passing.  In my opinion, it's worth taking the time to resolve those issues.

#2...
Who owns theConnector?

Is ownership being passed in?  No, not really.  But if it were, I'd say you 
should pass in the Connector object via auto_ptr<Connector>, which 
indicates a transfer of ownership.

Is ownership being shared (or distributed)?  Yes, sort of.  I recommend 
looking at BOOST Smart 
Pointers:  <http://www.boost.org/libs/smart_ptr/smart_ptr.htm>.

#3...
The answer to "What could be wrong" ... you should provide a compilable 
small example that demonstrates the problem.  My own toy example doesn't 
exhibit the problem.  NOTE:  the lifespan of Data theData object expires 
quite quickly:  at the end of the Sender constructor.

HTH,
--Eljay