Question

I’m creating a library. I want to make a fixed-length string class.

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#define OK 0
#define TOO_LONG 1
#define UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS 2

struct MyString {
    MyString(int l)
        : m_length(l) { }
    struct exception {
        exception(int t, MyString *p)
            : type(t), ptr(p) { }
        int type;
        MyString *ptr;
    };
    int set(const std::string& name);
    void set2(const std::string& name) throw(exception);

    std::string m_str;
    int m_length;
};

int MyString::set(const std::string& s)
{
    if(s.size() > 64) {
        return TOO_LONG;
    } else if(s.find('~') != std::string::npos) {
        return UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS;
    } else {
        m_str = s;
        return OK;
    }
}

void MyString::set2(const std::string& s) throw(exception)
{
    if(s.size() > m_length) {
        throw exception(TOO_LONG, this);
    } else if(s.find('~') != std::string::npos) {
        throw exception(UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS, this);
    } else {
        m_str = s;
    }
}

int main()
{
    using namespace std;
    //OPTION 1
    {
        MyString s1(10);
        MyString s2(10);
        int code;

        code = s1.set("abcdefghijX");
        switch(code) {
        case TOO_LONG:
            //handle <--
            break;
        case UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS:
            //handle
            break;
        default:
            //ok!
            break;
        }

        code = s2.set("abcdefghi~");
        switch(code) {
        case TOO_LONG:
            //handle
            break;
        case UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS:
            //handle <--
            break;
        default:
            //ok!
            break;
        }
    }

    //OPTION 2
    {
        MyString s1(10);
        MyString s2(10);
        try {
            s1.set2("abcdefghijX");
            s2.set2("abcdefghi~");

        } catch(MyString::exception &e) {
            cerr << "MyString::exception: ";
            auto p = e.ptr;
            if(p == &s1) cerr << "s1 ";
            else if(p == &s2) cerr << "s2 ";
            switch(e.type) {
                case TOO_LONG: cerr << "too long"; break;
                case UNALLOWED_CHARACTERS: cerr << "unallowed characters"; break;
            }
            cerr << endl;
        }

    }
}

I don’t know which version of MyString::set() I should use. What is the convention in such cases? I used STL in this example for demonstration purposes.

Answer 1

It is a good idea to mimic the behavior of the standard library functions unless one has a specific reason not to. BTW, since tr1, STL has a fixed-length string class built in. Lets see what it does. The only example implementation I have handy is Visual C++ 2010.

std::tr1::array<int,5> arry;
arry[10] = 42; // Oopsie. There is no element 10.

When compiled and run as the “Debug” version, I get an assert failure. When compiled for “Release” the offensive statement quietly does … NOTHING. It is optimized right out of existence. Okay, maybe that is not always what one would want. Forget what I said about mimicking the STL, or at least Microsoft’s implementation. Train of consciousness continues…

I think it is fair to say that if the program tries to set an out of range cell, that is a logic error in the program. In mission-critical software it might be a good idea to have code in place to deal with a situation like that and recover from it, while trying like heck to make sure it can never, never happen.

So the answer is, throw an exception of type std::out_of_range.

So there.