Still battling with Copy Control

I'm having trouble using push_back() on a vector of user defined types. Copy Control is a fascinating issue, but quiet difficult to master.

The class implements, among other things, a constructor taking a reference to a string, a copy constructor and two overloaded assignment operators.

Code:

---

aClass(const std::string& = "n/a");
aClass(const aClass&);
aClass& operator=(const aClass&);
aClass& operator=(const std::string&);

---

I then go on to create the vector in main()

Code:

---

vector<aClass> vec;
vec.insert(vec.end(), "Luigi"); //atempt with insert
vec.push_back("Anna"); //attempt with push_back

---

I was under the impression that push_back would operate by first creating a new element, then a temporary of aClass using the string constructor, and then use the copy constructor to copy this temporary to the new element.

How can I effectively do this, short of having to define a aClass object to pass as an argument to push_back()?

Hmm... some more important information...

The class only implements one data member. A string

The error states, on both push_backs, it cannot convert from const char to const aClass.

I'd write a conversion method (so that you can convert strings to your type) and see if that helps. Because otherwise, you have to construct the object you want to insert first and then use push_back on it.

One possibility is to have a constructor that accepts a const char*
Another way would be to simply write:

Code:

---

vec.push_back(std::string("Anna"));

---

*shrugs*

Code:

---

class aClass {
    public:
        /* ... */
        operator std::string() { return myString; }
        /* ... */
};

---

I dont think that will work, Desolation. Mario F. wants to have a const char[5] or const char[6] convertible to aClass, not to have aClass convertible to std::string. From what I see, making const char* convertible to aClass by means of a constructor that accepts a const char* as an argument is one way.

Did he try:

Code:

---

vector< aClass > vec;
aClass ac("Anna");
vec.push_back(ac);

---

hmm... perhaps more likely:

Code:

---

vec.push_back(aClass("Anna"));

---

Return value optimisation applies here, right?

It works. Thanks for the tips Citizen and Laserlight.

Converting the literal to a string was what I needed. I keep forgetting the difference between a string literal (const char) and a string. The error was telling me exactly that, but I wasn't looking. I did like the aClass() approach too. Probably easier to read since it doesn't trick the reader into thinking the vector contains strings.

But I did find one interesting thing... insert() is faster than push_back()

Actually I'm wrong. It isn't. It's slower. And also found the importance of reserve().

Every constructor, operator overload and the destructor has a cout inside letting me know when it is being called. This is a toy class I'm building as I learn about copy control.

On my code above I had insert() being called once and push_back being called next.

Code:

---

vector<aClass> vec;
vec.insert(vec.end(), aClass("Luigi"));
vec.push_back(aClass("Luigi"));

---

The output was...

Quote:

---

*inserting an element in vector...
...inside string constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside destructor...
...inside destructor...
*inserting another element in vector...
...inside string constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside destructor...
...inside destructor...
...inside destructor...

---

It seemed insert() was faster. But then I swapped push_back() with insert() and now push-back was faster. It didn't make sense untill I remembered how vectors allocate memory. All those calls are happening because the vector is being moved in memory. Once I reserved some memory for it, it looked much cleaner. And also taught me insert() is slower.

Quote:

---

*inserting an element in vector... (with insert)
...inside string constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside destructor...
...inside destructor...
*inserting another element in vector... (with push_back)
...inside string constructor...
...inside copy constructor...
...inside destructor...

---