[Condor-devel] memory management guidelines from Todd

[Erik Paulson <epaulson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Anyone touching the Condor code should see this message (and it should
be integrated into the coding guidelines - see src/CODING_GUIDELINES)

(and another thing from the coding guidelines - all member
variables of a class should begin with an m_. In condordb we don't follow
that very often)

-Erik

----- Forwarded message from "Todd Tannenbaum"  -----

+ re memory mangement review : for new code, memory management should
be easy and automatic (Todd boldly asserts!) by following Todd's Golden
Rules for mem management:

   1. Use the stack!  To aid with this, don't forget about our
auto-deleted string class (mystring), and similarly nowadays we have
an auto-deleted general buffer class that Greg Q recently added (cannot
recall the name off the top o my head).  Use em!
[Editor's note: Greg Q has not checked this in, so you can't use it yet]

   2. In classes, don't use pointers in data members unless you have
a reason.  Let the compiler delete your class state for u instead of
having to add code to the destructor.

   3. DONT USE PLAIN POINTERS ANYMORE!!  We have something
better... Counted pointers.  Essentially these are transparent
reference-counting pointers. Objects will automagically be deleted when
they go out of scope.  Like std c++ auto_ptr but better and portable.
In c++ util, see counted_ptr.h.  For the 5% of the cases u cannot use
counted_ptrs, use see classy_counted_ptr.

---
Todd Tannenbaum
Dept of Computer Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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