Checking for a null object in C++

Question

I\'ve mostly only worked with C and am running into some unfamiliar issues in C++.

Let\'s say that I have some function like this in C, which would be very typical:<

Answer 1

You can use a special designated object as the null object in case of references as follows:

class SomeClass
{
    public:

        int operator==(SomeClass &object)
        {
            if(this == &object) 
            {
                    return true;
            }

            return false;
        }


    static SomeClass NullObject;
};

SomeClass SomeClass::NullObject;

void print(SomeClass &val)
{
    if(val == SomeClass::NullObject)
    {
        printf("\nNULL");
    }
    else
    {
        printf("\nNOT NULL");
    }
}

Answer 2

• What is the most typical/common way of doing this with an object C++ (that doesn't involve overloading the == operator)?
• Is this even the right approach? ie. should I not write functions that take an object as an argument, but rather, write member functions? (But even if so, please answer the original question.)

No, references cannot be null (unless Undefined Behavior has already happened, in which case all bets are already off). Whether you should write a method or non-method depends on other factors.

• Between a function that takes a reference to an object, or a function that takes a C-style pointer to an object, are there reasons to choose one over the other?

If you need to represent "no object", then pass a pointer to the function, and let that pointer be NULL:

int silly_sum(int const* pa=0, int const* pb=0, int const* pc=0) {
  /* Take up to three ints and return the sum of any supplied values.

  Pass null pointers for "not supplied".

  This is NOT an example of good code.
  */
  if (!pa && (pb || pc)) return silly_sum(pb, pc);
  if (!pb && pc) return silly_sum(pa, pc);
  if (pc) return silly_sum(pa, pb) + *pc;
  if (pa && pb) return *pa + *pb;
  if (pa) return *pa;
  if (pb) return *pb;
  return 0;
}

int main() {
  int a = 1, b = 2, c = 3;
  cout << silly_sum(&a, &b, &c) << '\n';
  cout << silly_sum(&a, &b) << '\n';
  cout << silly_sum(&a) << '\n';
  cout << silly_sum(0, &b, &c) << '\n';
  cout << silly_sum(&a, 0, &c) << '\n';
  cout << silly_sum(0, 0, &c) << '\n';
  return 0;
}

If "no object" never needs to be represented, then references work fine. In fact, operator overloads are much simpler because they take overloads.

You can use something like boost::optional.