Question

I like the idea of const member variables especially when I wrap C functions into classes. The constructor takes a resource handle (e.g. a file descriptor) that stays valid during the whole object life time and the destructor finally closes it. (That is the idea behind RAII, right?)

But with the C++0x move constructor i run into a problem. Since the destructor is also called on the “unloaded” object i need to prevent the cleanup of the resource handle. Since the member variable is const i have no way to assign the value -1 or INVALID_HANDLE (or equivalent values) to indicate to the destructor that it should not do anything.

Is there a way that the destructor is not called if the state of an object was moved to another object?

Example:

class File
{
public:
    // Kind of "named constructor" or "static factory method"
    static File open(const char *fileName, const char *modes)
    {
        FILE *handle = fopen(fileName, modes);
        return File(handle);
    }

private:
    FILE * const handle;

public:
    File(FILE *handle) : handle(handle)
    {
    }

    ~File()
    {
        fclose(handle);
    }

    File(File &&other) : handle(other.handle)
    {
        // The compiler should not call the destructor of the "other"
        // object.
    }

    File(const File &other) = delete;
    File &operator =(const File &other) = delete;
};

Answer 1

No, there is no way to do this. I would suggest that if you’re really attached to the handle variable being const you should have a non-const flag member variable that indicates whether or not destruction should do anything.