RE: object-model: Return by value, reference or pointer? (or something else?)

-----Original Message-----
> From: Steinar Bang [mailto:sb_at_dod.no]
> Sent: 13 October 2010 21:16
> To: dev_at_subversion.apache.org
> Subject: Re: object-model: Return by value, reference or pointer? (or
something else?)

> Do you need the distrinction between an empty string and a NULL?
> If not then I would return an empty string for a NULL on the C side.

> There's also the consideration that some std::string implementations
are deep copying (the gcc version uses refcounting > (or at least used
to do so), but the VC++ one used to use deep copying. I'm not sure if
that still is the case).

--
Yes, it does, they removed refcounts after VC6. The problem with
refcounting a std::string is the performance of it in a threaded
environment is worse than simply copying the string (you have to handle
all the copy-on-write issues and this gets difficult).
http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/string_discussion.html describes some of the
problems.
I have agree with Steiner - what's the difference between a null string
and an empty string? Typically there is no difference. In the case of C
there was, as the char* might be NULL, or it might point to a byte with
\0 as its first character. That NULLness is an artefact of how C manages
string memory, not any way of describing the string. Once you start
using both, you get stuff like .NETs '.IsNullorEmpty()' methods - and
then you're back right where you started, treating a NULL and an empty
string as the same thing.
In C++, if you really need to return either nothing or a string, return
a std::pair<bool, std::string> (like std::map uses to indicate if the
insertion succeeded or failed due to an existing key was already present
in the map).
Most DB access methods return the datatype, and another indicator
whether the data was NULL. 
Personally, I would stick to just returning a string, or if it is
essential to return a null value, return a string and an null indicator
- your choice whether that's best as a pair, or an out parameter. I
would not inherit from std::string, nor would I throw an exception (not
that anyone's yet suggested that - we're not C# or Java programmers
after all :-) )
Andy