assignment operator deep copy c

21.13 — Shallow vs. deep copying

Shallow copying

Because C++ does not know much about your class, the default copy constructor and default assignment operators it provides use a copying method known as a memberwise copy (also known as a shallow copy ). This means that C++ copies each member of the class individually (using the assignment operator for overloaded operator=, and direct initialization for the copy constructor). When classes are simple (e.g. do not contain any dynamically allocated memory), this works very well.

For example, let’s take a look at our Fraction class:

The default copy constructor and default assignment operator provided by the compiler for this class look something like this:

Note that because these default versions work just fine for copying this class, there’s really no reason to write our own version of these functions in this case.

However, when designing classes that handle dynamically allocated memory, memberwise (shallow) copying can get us in a lot of trouble! This is because shallow copies of a pointer just copy the address of the pointer -- it does not allocate any memory or copy the contents being pointed to!

Let’s take a look at an example of this:

The above is a simple string class that allocates memory to hold a string that we pass in. Note that we have not defined a copy constructor or overloaded assignment operator. Consequently, C++ will provide a default copy constructor and default assignment operator that do a shallow copy. The copy constructor will look something like this:

Note that m_data is just a shallow pointer copy of source.m_data, meaning they now both point to the same thing.

Now, consider the following snippet of code:

While this code looks harmless enough, it contains an insidious problem that will cause the program to exhibit undefined behavior!

Let’s break down this example line by line:

This line is harmless enough. This calls the MyString constructor, which allocates some memory, sets hello.m_data to point to it, and then copies the string “Hello, world!” into it.

This line seems harmless enough as well, but it’s actually the source of our problem! When this line is evaluated, C++ will use the default copy constructor (because we haven’t provided our own). This copy constructor will do a shallow copy, initializing copy.m_data to the same address of hello.m_data. As a result, copy.m_data and hello.m_data are now both pointing to the same piece of memory!

When copy goes out of scope, the MyString destructor is called on copy. The destructor deletes the dynamically allocated memory that both copy.m_data and hello.m_data are pointing to! Consequently, by deleting copy, we’ve also (inadvertently) affected hello. Variable copy then gets destroyed, but hello.m_data is left pointing to the deleted (invalid) memory!

Now you can see why this program has undefined behavior. We deleted the string that hello was pointing to, and now we are trying to print the value of memory that is no longer allocated.

The root of this problem is the shallow copy done by the copy constructor -- doing a shallow copy on pointer values in a copy constructor or overloaded assignment operator is almost always asking for trouble.

Deep copying

One answer to this problem is to do a deep copy on any non-null pointers being copied. A deep copy allocates memory for the copy and then copies the actual value, so that the copy lives in distinct memory from the source. This way, the copy and source are distinct and will not affect each other in any way. Doing deep copies requires that we write our own copy constructors and overloaded assignment operators.

Let’s go ahead and show how this is done for our MyString class:

As you can see, this is quite a bit more involved than a simple shallow copy! First, we have to check to make sure source even has a string (line 11). If it does, then we allocate enough memory to hold a copy of that string (line 14). Finally, we have to manually copy the string (lines 17 and 18).

Now let’s do the overloaded assignment operator. The overloaded assignment operator is slightly trickier:

Note that our assignment operator is very similar to our copy constructor, but there are three major differences:

• We added a self-assignment check.
• We return *this so we can chain the assignment operator.
• We need to explicitly deallocate any value that the string is already holding (so we don’t have a memory leak when m_data is reallocated later). This is handled inside deepCopy().

When the overloaded assignment operator is called, the item being assigned to may already contain a previous value, which we need to make sure we clean up before we assign memory for new values. For non-dynamically allocated variables (which are a fixed size), we don’t have to bother because the new value just overwrites the old one. However, for dynamically allocated variables, we need to explicitly deallocate any old memory before we allocate any new memory. If we don’t, the code will not crash, but we will have a memory leak that will eat away our free memory every time we do an assignment!

The rule of three

Remember the rule of three? If a class requires a user-defined destructor, copy constructor, or copy assignment operator, then it probably requires all three. This is why. If we’re user-defining any of these functions, it’s probably because we’re dealing with dynamic memory allocation. We need the copy constructor and copy assignment to handle deep copies, and the destructor to deallocate memory.

A better solution

Classes in the standard library that deal with dynamic memory, such as std::string and std::vector, handle all of their memory management, and have overloaded copy constructors and assignment operators that do proper deep copying. So instead of doing your own memory management, you can just initialize or assign them like normal fundamental variables! That makes these classes simpler to use, less error-prone, and you don’t have to spend time writing your own overloaded functions!

• The default copy constructor and default assignment operators do shallow copies, which is fine for classes that contain no dynamically allocated variables.
• Classes with dynamically allocated variables need to have a copy constructor and assignment operator that do a deep copy.
• Favor using classes in the standard library over doing your own memory management.

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Copy constructors and copy assignment operators (C++)

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Starting in C++11, two kinds of assignment are supported in the language: copy assignment and move assignment . In this article "assignment" means copy assignment unless explicitly stated otherwise. For information about move assignment, see Move Constructors and Move Assignment Operators (C++) .

Both the assignment operation and the initialization operation cause objects to be copied.

Assignment : When one object's value is assigned to another object, the first object is copied to the second object. So, this code copies the value of b into a :

Initialization : Initialization occurs when you declare a new object, when you pass function arguments by value, or when you return by value from a function.

You can define the semantics of "copy" for objects of class type. For example, consider this code:

The preceding code could mean "copy the contents of FILE1.DAT to FILE2.DAT" or it could mean "ignore FILE2.DAT and make b a second handle to FILE1.DAT." You must attach appropriate copying semantics to each class, as follows:

Use an assignment operator operator= that returns a reference to the class type and takes one parameter that's passed by const reference—for example ClassName& operator=(const ClassName& x); .

Use the copy constructor.

If you don't declare a copy constructor, the compiler generates a member-wise copy constructor for you. Similarly, if you don't declare a copy assignment operator, the compiler generates a member-wise copy assignment operator for you. Declaring a copy constructor doesn't suppress the compiler-generated copy assignment operator, and vice-versa. If you implement either one, we recommend that you implement the other one, too. When you implement both, the meaning of the code is clear.

The copy constructor takes an argument of type ClassName& , where ClassName is the name of the class. For example:

Make the type of the copy constructor's argument const ClassName& whenever possible. This prevents the copy constructor from accidentally changing the copied object. It also lets you copy from const objects.

Compiler generated copy constructors

Compiler-generated copy constructors, like user-defined copy constructors, have a single argument of type "reference to class-name ." An exception is when all base classes and member classes have copy constructors declared as taking a single argument of type const class-name & . In such a case, the compiler-generated copy constructor's argument is also const .

When the argument type to the copy constructor isn't const , initialization by copying a const object generates an error. The reverse isn't true: If the argument is const , you can initialize by copying an object that's not const .

Compiler-generated assignment operators follow the same pattern for const . They take a single argument of type ClassName& unless the assignment operators in all base and member classes take arguments of type const ClassName& . In this case, the generated assignment operator for the class takes a const argument.

When virtual base classes are initialized by copy constructors, whether compiler-generated or user-defined, they're initialized only once: at the point when they are constructed.

The implications are similar to the copy constructor. When the argument type isn't const , assignment from a const object generates an error. The reverse isn't true: If a const value is assigned to a value that's not const , the assignment succeeds.

For more information about overloaded assignment operators, see Assignment .

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