mardi 5 décembre 2017

Using move semantics to avoid copying when pushing_back to a custom container does not avoid copying

I have implemented a custom container (same vein as std::vector) and I am trying to make it so that its 'push_back' function would use leverage on move semantics to avoid creating a copy of whatever is being pushed back - specially when the object to be pushed into the container is returned by an external function.

After reading quite a bit about move semantics and custom containers, I still can't find why my approach is still generating a copy instead of just moving the passed object into the container's inner dynamic array.

Here is a simplified version of my container looks like:

template<class T>
class Constructor
{
private:
    size_t size = 0;
    size_t cap = 0;
    T *data = nullptr;

public:
Constructor()
{
    cap = 1;
    size = 0;
    data = static_cast<T*>(malloc(cap * sizeof(T)));
}

~Constructor()
{ delete[] data; }

template<typename U>
void push_back(U &&value)
{
    if (size + 1 >= cap)
    {
        size_t new_cap = (cap * 2);
        T* new_data = static_cast<T*>(malloc(new_cap * sizeof(T)));
        memmove(new_data, data, (size) * sizeof(T));
        for (size_t i = 0; i<cap; i++)
        {
            data[i].~T();
        }

        delete[] data;

        cap = new_cap;
        data = new_data;
        new(data + size) T(std::forward<U>(value));
    }
    else
    {
        new(data + size) T(std::forward<U>(value));
    }

    ++size;
}

const T& operator[](const size_t index) const //access [] overloading
{
    return data[index];
}
};

Here is a custom class that will print messages when its instances are created, copied or moved, in order to help debugging:

class MyClass
{
size_t id;

public:
MyClass(const size_t new_id)
{
    id = new_id;
    std::cout << "new instance with id " << id << std::endl;
}
MyClass(const MyClass &passedEntity)
{
    id = passedEntity.id;
    std::cout << "copied instance" << std::endl;
}
MyClass(MyClass &&passedEntity)
{
    id = passedEntity.id;
    std::cout << "moved instance" << std::endl;
}

void printID() const
{
    std::cout << "this instance's id is " << id << std::endl;
}
};

And here is the external function:

MyClass &foo(MyClass &passed)
{
    return passed;
}

Lastly, here is the main function that runs a test case using the above function and classes to show the problem:

int main()
{
MyClass a(33);
std::cout << std::endl;

std::cout << "Using my custom container: " << std::endl;
Constructor<MyClass> myContainer;
myContainer.push_back(foo(a));
myContainer[0].printID();
std::cout << std::endl;

std::cout << "Using dinamic array: " << std::endl;
MyClass *dinArray = static_cast<MyClass*>(malloc(1 * sizeof(MyClass)));
dinArray = new(dinArray + 1) MyClass(std::forward<MyClass>(foo(a)));
dinArray[0].printID();
std::cout << std::endl;


system("Pause");
return 0;
}

The output is:

new instance with id 33

Using my custom container:
copied instance
this instance's id is 33

Using dinamic array:
moved instance
this instance's id is 33

As it can be seen, if the instance of MyClass is put directly into a dynamic array, then just the move conmstructor is called and not the copy constructor. However, if I push_back the yClass instance into an instance of Container, a copy constructor is still being called.

Could someone help me understand what exactly am I doing wrong here? How could I make it so that elements are pushed into the container without generating a copy?

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