Re: Why do constructors have same name as the class ?

On 29 Feb., 00:17, "Ole Nielsby" <ole.niel...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In the Middle of the Pack <a...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > Now, a destructor is going to destroy an instance, so it can return
> > neither
> > its object nor any part of its object. Just what else might you like
it =
to
> > return?
>
> Fx the size of the now-vacant memory block.
>
> I wrote an interpreter for a language with a reference-counted data
> model. To keep memory footprint small, I want to be able to use a
> custom allocator that doesn't use extra space for administration. For
> this to work, the size of the garbage chunks must be inferred from the
> objects at destruction time.
>
> I defined a method =A0 =A0unlinkAndGetSize() =A0 =A0which is essentially
a=
 value-
> returning destructor - this works for me, but my code might have come
> out somewhat more elegant if I could have returned this value from the
> destructor.

But that is an implementation detail. The book "Inside the C++ object
model" by Stan Lippman gives lots of examples about how to implement
the C++ code. If I remember correctly, returning the size of the
object from the destructor was useful in some situations (I do not
remember them any more, thats just one more reason for you to buy the
excellent book!),

/Peter