Hi John, John Love-Jensen wrote: > [...] > Regardless, it's not a copy constructor. Okay, then let's not call it a copy constructor; I'm not fixed to that. How should I call it then? It is a special kind of constructor deserving a special name. > [...] > You can implement similar facilities like auto_ptr for your class to have > the behavior you are inquiring about. I guess so. Yet I still don't know how to do this. > [...] > On this particular issue, g++ is complying with ISO 14882. VC7 is not. > > More information in The Design and Evolution of C++: > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201543303/ I don't have this book yet. But after a first glance I think it's worth buying. > I don't recall if the particular point you raised is covered. > > I believe it (copy constructor being a const reference) has to do with > catastrophic slicing if it were not a const, and infinite recursion if it > were not a reference. @2nd point: agreed @1st point: not sure (don't even know what exactly catastrophic slicing means). From my restricted technical understanding passing a const reference it not different from passing a reference. The only difference is that the compiler doesn't let you make any non-const operations on a const object. It's like private and public methods. Technically there's no difference between them. Again, it's just that the compiler only let's you call a private method if you're allowed to. That said, why don't I just do this: A::A (const A& copyMe) { A& nonConstSource = const_cast<A&> (copyMe); // ... } Not nice of course, but does the trick. Yours, Christian
