Question

Let’s say I have a class that I don’t own: DataBuffer. It provides various get member functions:

get(uint8_t *value);
get(uint16_t *value); 
...

When reading from a structure contained in this buffer, I know the order and size of fields, and I want to reduce the chance of future code changes causing an error:

struct Record 
{
    uint16_t Header;
    uint16_t Content;
}

void ReadIntoRecord(Record* r)
{
    DataBuffer buf( initialized from the network with bytes )
    buf.get(&r->Header); // Good!
    buf.get(&r->Content);
}

Then someone checks in a change to do something with the header before writing it:

    uint8_t customHeader;
    buf.get(&customHeader);  // Wrong, stopped reading after only 1 byte
    r->Header = customHeader + 1;
    buf.get(&r->Content);  // now we're reading from the wrong part of the buffer.

Is the following an acceptable way to harden the code against changes? Remember, I can’t change the function names to getByte, getUShort, etc. I could inherit from DataBuffer, but that seems like overkill.

    buf.get(static_cast<uint16_t*>(&r->Header));  // compiler will catch incorrect variable type
    buf.get(static_cast<uint16_t*>(&r->Content))

Updated with not-eye-safe legacy code example:

       float dummy_float;
        uint32_t dummy32;
        uint16_t dummy16;
        uint8_t dummy8;

        uint16_t headTypeTemp;
        buf.get(static_cast<uint16_t*>(&headTypeTemp));
        m_headType = HeadType(headTypeTemp);
        buf.get(static_cast<uint8_t*>(&hid));
        buf.get(m_Name);
        buf.get(m_SerialNumber);


        float start;
        buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&start));
        float stop;
        buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&stop));


        buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&dummy_float));
        setStuffA(dummy_float);

        buf.get(static_cast<uint16_t*>(&dummy16));
        setStuffB(float(dummy16)/1000);

        buf.get(static_cast<uint8_t*>(&dummy8));    //reserved





        buf.get(static_cast<uint32_t*>(&dummy32));
        Entries().setStart( dummy32 );
        buf.get(static_cast<uint32_t*>(&dummy32));
        Entries().setStop( dummy32 );
        buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&dummy_float));
        Entries().setMoreStuff( dummy_float );

        uint32_t datalength;
        buf.get(static_cast<uint32_t*>(&datalength));

        Entries().data().setLength(datalength);

        RetVal ret = ReturnCode::SUCCESS;
        Entry* data_ptr = Entries().data().data();
        for (unsigned int i = 0; i < datalength && ret == ReturnCode::SUCCESS; i++)
        {
            ret = buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&dummy_float));
            data_ptr[i].FieldA = dummy_float;
        }

        for (unsigned int i = 0; i < datalength && ret == ReturnCode::SUCCESS; i++)
        {
            ret = buf.get(static_cast<float*>(&dummy_float));
            data_ptr[i].FieldB = dummy_float;
        }

        // Read in the normalization vector
        Util::SimpleVector<float> norm;
        buf.get(static_cast<uint32_t*>(&datalength));
        norm.setLength(datalength);
        for (unsigned int i=0; i<datalength; i++)
        {
            norm[i] = buf.getFloat();
        }

        setNormalization(norm);

        return ReturnCode::SUCCESS;
}

Answer 1

Don’t use overloading. Why not have get_word and get_dword calls? The interface isn’t going to be any uglier but at least the mistake is a lot harder to make.