IlvSmartData Class Reference

Base class for reference counting. More...

#include <ilviews/base/smartptr.h>

Inheritance diagram for IlvSmartData:

Public Member Functions
	IlvSmartData ()
	See below.
virtual	~IlvSmartData ()
	Constructors. More...
void	decrRef ()
	Decrements the reference counter of the object and deletes this object when the counter reaches 0. More...
void	incrRef ()
	Increments the reference counter.
int	refCount ()
	Returns the number of references to this object. More...

Detailed Description

Base class for reference counting.

Library: views

The class IlvSmartData provides functionality for reference counting and automatic deletion of nonreferenced objects. Objects of classes derived from IlvSmartData should not be explicitly deleted. You should assign these objects a SmartPointer object that will maintain a reference counter to keep track of how many objects are pointing to them. The smart pointer does the following:

• When it no longer references an object, it decrements its reference counter and deletes the object it points to if the reference counter reaches 0.
• When it starts referencing an object, it increments its reference counter.

Instances of IlvSmartData subclasses can be created statically like all other objects, in which case they are destroyed when they come out of the scope of the current function. Pointers and smart pointers referencing objects that are out-of-scope become invalid as expected. Objects that are created statically are internally differentiated from objects that are created dynamically by setting their initial reference counter to 1 when they are created on the stack, and to 0 when they are created with the new operator.

See Also

IlvSmartPointer.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

virtual IlvSmartData::~IlvSmartData ( )

virtual

Constructors.

These constructors initialize the reference counter to 0 if the new operator of this class was called before calling the constructor, and to 1 otherwise, to prevent applying the delete operator on objects allocated statically.

Member Function Documentation

void IlvSmartData::decrRef

(

)

Decrements the reference counter of the object and deletes this object when the counter reaches 0.

This method and the previous one are usually called by the IlvSmartPointer objects that point to the object. Therefore, you do not have to call it directly, unless you want to override the normal behavior of smart pointers temporarily.

int IlvSmartData::refCount

(

)

Returns the number of references to this object.

Returns

The number of references pointing to this object.