Olaf van der Spek wrote:
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Edward Diener <eldiener@tropicsoft.com> wrote:
Of course you can support reference properties along with value properties. It is just very hard, if not impossible, to support both kinds using the same template class. So really one would not a separate template class to support reference properties.
Maybe I should've said class reference. Take std::string for example. I'd be very interested if you've got code that supports for example name.size() where name is your reference property class. name->size() is no problem, but I'd like to have name.size().
I understand your point, and you are right, and this is a notational weakness as compared with accessing the data directly. I don't believe that one can define a dot ( '.' ) operator in C++ but maybe there is a metaprogramming way to hijack the dot operator. If there is I would be glad to use it. Actually I have rejected defining the -> operator for my reference properties, because -> implies a pointer in standard C++ terminology and I do not think of reference properties "pointing" to their type object. Instead my reference properties have currently no built-in forwarder operator to the actual type object. One could currently use the more laborious form of: propertyReference<std::string> name; std::string & avar = name; // read/write property reference getter avar.size() = 10; // or std::string::size_type sz(avar.size()); or one could use my getter member function so one could write: propertyReference<std::string> name; name.getReference.size() = 10; // or std::string::size_type sz(name.getReference.size()); Using a member function rather than an operator in this case is just a little more inconvenient. My member function is actually currently called "getValue" for my reference property but I have decided that it is a confusing name since one is really getting a reference, and have changed it to "getReference". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "So really one would not a separate template class to support reference properties." This was originally mistyped by me and should have been: "So really one would need a separate template class to support reference properties." But I think you read through my error anyway without any problems. -----------------------------------------------------------------------