[c++] What is The Rule of Three?

What does copying an object mean? There are a few ways you can copy objects--let's talk about the 2 kinds you're most likely referring to--deep copy and shallow copy.

Since we're in an object-oriented language (or at least are assuming so), let's say you have a piece of memory allocated. Since it's an OO-language, we can easily refer to chunks of memory we allocate because they are usually primitive variables (ints, chars, bytes) or classes we defined that are made of our own types and primitives. So let's say we have a class of Car as follows:

class Car //A very simple class just to demonstrate what these definitions mean.
//It's pseudocode C++/Javaish, I assume strings do not need to be allocated.
{
private String sPrintColor;
private String sModel;
private String sMake;

public changePaint(String newColor)
{
   this.sPrintColor = newColor;
}

public Car(String model, String make, String color) //Constructor
{
   this.sPrintColor = color;
   this.sModel = model;
   this.sMake = make;
}

public ~Car() //Destructor
{
//Because we did not create any custom types, we aren't adding more code.
//Anytime your object goes out of scope / program collects garbage / etc. this guy gets called + all other related destructors.
//Since we did not use anything but strings, we have nothing additional to handle.
//The assumption is being made that the 3 strings will be handled by string's destructor and that it is being called automatically--if this were not the case you would need to do it here.
}

public Car(const Car &other) // Copy Constructor
{
   this.sPrintColor = other.sPrintColor;
   this.sModel = other.sModel;
   this.sMake = other.sMake;
}
public Car &operator =(const Car &other) // Assignment Operator
{
   if(this != &other)
   {
      this.sPrintColor = other.sPrintColor;
      this.sModel = other.sModel;
      this.sMake = other.sMake;
   }
   return *this;
}

}

A deep copy is if we declare an object and then create a completely separate copy of the object...we end up with 2 objects in 2 completely sets of memory.

Car car1 = new Car("mustang", "ford", "red");
Car car2 = car1; //Call the copy constructor
car2.changePaint("green");
//car2 is now green but car1 is still red.

Now let's do something strange. Let's say car2 is either programmed wrong or purposely meant to share the actual memory that car1 is made of. (It's usually a mistake to do this and in classes is usually the blanket it's discussed under.) Pretend that anytime you ask about car2, you're really resolving a pointer to car1's memory space...that's more or less what a shallow copy is.

//Shallow copy example
//Assume we're in C++ because it's standard behavior is to shallow copy objects if you do not have a constructor written for an operation.
//Now let's assume I do not have any code for the assignment or copy operations like I do above...with those now gone, C++ will use the default.

 Car car1 = new Car("ford", "mustang", "red"); 
 Car car2 = car1; 
 car2.changePaint("green");//car1 is also now green 
 delete car2;/*I get rid of my car which is also really your car...I told C++ to resolve 
 the address of where car2 exists and delete the memory...which is also
 the memory associated with your car.*/
 car1.changePaint("red");/*program will likely crash because this area is
 no longer allocated to the program.*/

So regardless of what language you're writing in, be very careful about what you mean when it comes to copying objects because most of the time you want a deep copy.

What are the copy constructor and the copy assignment operator? I have already used them above. The copy constructor is called when you type code such as Car car2 = car1; Essentially if you declare a variable and assign it in one line, that's when the copy constructor is called. The assignment operator is what happens when you use an equal sign--car2 = car1;. Notice car2 isn't declared in the same statement. The two chunks of code you write for these operations are likely very similar. In fact the typical design pattern has another function you call to set everything once you're satisfied the initial copy/assignment is legitimate--if you look at the longhand code I wrote, the functions are nearly identical.

When do I need to declare them myself? If you are not writing code that is to be shared or for production in some manner, you really only need to declare them when you need them. You do need to be aware of what your program language does if you choose to use it 'by accident' and didn't make one--i.e. you get the compiler default. I rarely use copy constructors for instance, but assignment operator overrides are very common. Did you know you can override what addition, subtraction, etc. mean as well?

How can I prevent my objects from being copied? Override all of the ways you're allowed to allocate memory for your object with a private function is a reasonable start. If you really don't want people copying them, you could make it public and alert the programmer by throwing an exception and also not copying the object.

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