Question

Suppose there is a destructor for an object as:

anObject::~anObject()
{
    _functionCalledfromDestructor=1; //this sets the flag = 1
    functionCall(); //this function does something different than usual
                    //on seeing the flag
}

My question:

Is this style/method of coding in the destructor a good practice?

Answer 1

“Hidden channels” like this are always a bad idea. The behavior of a function shouldn’t depend on invisible state. You could give the function an argument, and then pass one value in the destructor and another value everywhere else. You could use a default value for the more common case, if you wish.