Mateusz Loskot

When programming in C++, it’s a good idea to use proper integer types relevant to particular context. A little bit of strictness always pays back. It’s not uncommon to see a tendency to ignore the integral types defined as specific to standard containers, namely size_type. It’s available for number of standard container like std::string or std::vector. Such ignorance may get its revenge easily.

Below is a simple example of incorrectly used type to catch result of std::string::find function. I’m quite sure that many would expect there is nothing wrong with the unsigned int here. But, actually this is just a bug. I run Linux on 64-bit architecture and when I compile this program as is, it works as expected. However, when I replace the string in line [1] with abc, it still works but not as expected :-)

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
  string s = "a:b:c"; // "abc" [1]
  char delim = ':';
  unsigned int pos = s.find(delim);
  if(string::npos != pos)
  {
    cout << delim << " found in " << s << endl;
  }
}

Fix is very simply. Just replace unsigned int with std::string::size_type. The problem could be avoided if somebody who wrote this program took care of use of correct type. Not to mention that the program would be portable straight away.

I’ve seen this kind of issues quite many times, especially in code written by former C programmers who do not like to wear the muzzle of strictness the C++ types system enforces and requires. The example above is a trivial one, but I believe it presents the root of the problem well.

It’s not acceptable to cut corners in the biscuits business, so why it should be acceptable in programming :-)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:03 pm and is filed under c++, programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.