Thread: Why do G++ and MSVS handle s1 += " world!" differently?

Originally Posted by Elysia

1) MSVC is doing it by the book. I am guessing that g++ is applying optimizations here. Try running the MSVC build in Release mode.

Ah! That was it. After switching from Debug to Release mode the output was the same. I am definitely a newbie.

Originally Posted by Elysia

2) Because there is no operator += that takes a const char*. However, there is one operator that takes a const CSimpleString&. So the compiler checks the constructors to see if there is CSimpleString(const char*), and there is. So it invokes that to create a temp object, and then calls operator +=. This is called an implicit conversion.

That is masterfully explained, thank you for going into that level of detail. After I read it I looked at the

Code:

s1 += " world!"

line and I could kick myself for not seeing it.

Originally Posted by Caligulaminus

Am I right to assume that you speak german?

Sorry, no, I don't speak German. At best I might understand snippets of formal French from my high school days, but Google Translate would be my only hope of working with German.

Just out of curiosity, what gave you the impression I understood German? I'm particularly curious what makes me seem smarter than I am.

Originally Posted by Caligulaminus

Google Translate says:

g + + seems to be the construction / destruction of the temporary return of the object on the Op Op wegzuoptimieren + + =.
Because of such things (The standard explicitly allows such optimizations) you should turn off all optimizations when debugging.

Great tip, thank you. I didn't even think about the fact g++ was probably not compiling in debug mode.

Originally Posted by Caligulaminus

By the way: Why did you build the Op + = with the help of the Op + and not the other way, as recommended?

I probably didn't mention it, but what I did was read the exercise directions, solved it myself and then compared my solution against the author's solution.

My code was ugly.

It worked, but each overloaded operator+ function was a copy/paste/modify of each other which resulted in a bunch of duplicated code. As I was comparing my code against the author's I found what looked like a memory leak in both my code and the author's. After getting feedback (see thread I mention my first post to this thread) from oogabooga, I went and modified the author's code to include the proposed fix.

I've was trying to work with the author's code as-is without making modifications to how it worked. This was because I didn't fully understand what I was dealing with yet and I felt that making enhancements that weren't fully obvious (to me) would confuse me further.

I've spent many years trying to learn C++ (off/on) and all previous times I got hung up on trying different ways to do something instead of just going through the material. I've got one book I'm going through and about 5-6 other resources (mainly other books) I refer to when I run up against something I feel I need to know more about. The concept of pointers is a good example. I used close to all of my resources and still ended up referring to web sites for clarification.

Originally Posted by iMalc

Compilers are allowed to perform optimisation to avoid copy-construction in certain cases.
As such, the standard says that you're not allowed to rely on side-effects that occur during copy-construction. Outputting any kind of debug message is a side-effect. In both cases, any temporary object that is created is of course destructed.

Good to know. I forget whether it was this book or another that when introducing destructors presented an example of a destructor that only printed output the message that it was called.

I'm using that same approach here so I can see what order the various constructors/functions fire to follow the code flow.

Thankfully I've been using debug mode all along with MSVS, so it has been both useful and accurate (from what I could tell). I just so happened to test with g++ this time and ran into the discrepancy. Thanks to everyone for making clear why.

Originally Posted by iMalc

Just remove any logging you have and the problem is gone.

Yes the compilers optimised differently, but the net result is code that has the same effect. Of course if your code is broken, then no matter what the compiler does, your code might not work.

Sure, I'm following you there. Now that I realize that g++ was optimizing the code and MSVS was not, I understand why the results were different. Also with Elysia answering my second question, I completely understand what the debug output messages were telling me.

Originally Posted by iMalc

There are a lot of differences between compilers and this is very much not one of the differences between compilers that you should worry about. There are far bigger issues that you'll run into eventually if using multiple compilers.

For the most part during my studies I'll be content to treat the compiler output as a black box, provided I understand what the code I'm working with does. It's when I can't read it and understand it that I turn to dissection via debug output to assist.

I've read of too many cases where the compiler takes the liberty to optimize away user created loops and slower code when it's able to. My exposure to Gentoo years ago when I had to set compilation flags for package builds helped to impress this upon me. Thanks for the warning though, as it's important not to lose focus of the goal.

Originally Posted by Caligulaminus

international == english?!?

This must be a big misunderstanding... Couldn't explain it otherwise.

Are you japanese?

If you are at an international airport, does everyone speak everyones' native language? I think not. They tend to speak english.
Am I japanese? Wish that I were, but alas, I am not (nor am I english).

Originally Posted by Caligulaminus

But I couldn't in that particular situation.

(the fact that I obviously didn't manage to make myself clear yet ultimately supports my point here)

If this is supposed to be an english only forum it should be stated clearly. And I would gladly stay (far) away.

I use english in forums like this almost always, because it is the lingua franca of our time. But when I hit a point when my english fails my communication needs I use what enables me to express myself. Believe it or not, I even use latin phrases sometimes.

If that's inacceptable, only native english speakers should be granted full membership...

I really don't understand this uproar. Not a bit!

Calm down. You did something wrong and you were corrected for it. But so what? That doesn't mean the end of the world. We all make mistakes and things we rather forget all the time, and we learn to live with it.
Just accept what you've been told and think about it in the future.

Also consider this:
If you are in, say, France and want to explain something to someone, but you can't explain it very well in english, do you say it in german?
The same analogy could be applied here. I would say it is better to try your utmost explaining it in english instead of german and take help from other members to fill in what you couldn't explain and perhaps even help you formulate it better.
This is an english forum after all, so take it as an opportunity to help you learn some english.

If you wish to be a tard, then fine. You are digging your own grave. My advice is: suck it up and live with it. That way, there won't be any further discussions about this topic. Of course, you may do as you please.

Gees guys way to go overboard

I'm sorry I added my 2c on the aforementioned matter as once everyone chimes in it adds up to a lot.

Too far off topic to salvage - closed.