Question

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What's the most reliable way to prohibit a copy constructor in C++?

Suppose I want to make a class non-copyable and want to prohibit copy constructor and assignment operator. I make them private and leave unimplemented:

class Class {
//useful stuff, then
private:
    Class( const Class& ); //not implemented anywhere
    void operator=( const Class& ); //not implemented anywhere
};

this way if any of them is accidentially called from within friends or the same class I get a link-time error.

Now what if a user implements them? I mean there’s no implementation, so anyone can add his own:

Class::Class( const Class& )
{
    //whatever they want
}

Of course I could have created my own implementation and add an assertion there, but that would delay unintended calls detection until the program is run.

Is there a way to prevent implementing such method by a user and still have compile-time detection of unintended calls to them?

Answer 1

In C++0x there is the new delete keyword, that does just this

What's the most reliable way to prohibit a copy constructor in C++?