Item 38. Object Identity
Difficulty: 5
"Who am I, really?" This problem addresses how to decide whether two pointers really refer to the same object.
The "this != &other" test (illustrated below) is a common coding practice intended to prevent self-assignment. Is the condition necessary and/or sufficient to accomplish this? Why or why not? If not, how would you fix it?
T& T::operator=( const T& other )
{
if( this != &other ) // the test in question
{
// ...
}
return *this;
}
Remember to distinguish between "protecting against Murphy versus protecting against Machiavelli"梩hat is, protecting against things going wrong on their own versus a malicious programmer going to great lengths trying to break your code.
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