It’s simple to make this mistake if you’re a fan of making everything const that can be const!
For example:
static void testDynamicObject()
{
Logger::writeToLog ("==== testDynamicObject ====");
DynamicObject::Ptr object = new DynamicObject();
object->setProperty ("thing", 100);
var varObject (object.get());
if (const auto* const tempObject = varObject.getDynamicObject())
{
Logger::writeToLog ("==== original =====");
Logger::writeToLog (tempObject->getProperty ("thing"));
var varObjectCopy (tempObject); // calls var (bool)
Logger::writeToLog ("==== copy =========");
Logger::writeToLog (varObjectCopy["thing"]);
var varObjectAssign;
varObjectAssign = tempObject; // calls operator= (bool)
Logger::writeToLog ("==== copy =========");
Logger::writeToLog (varObjectAssign["thing"]);
}
Logger::writeToLog ("====================");
}
This unexpectedly calls the constructor and assignment operator for the bool type, rather than the pointer types.
I thought one solution to this for DynamicObject specifically would be to add a costructor for const DynamicObject* then make a clone within the constructor. But DynamicObject::clone() is not marked const, so that won’t work.
Perhaps the easiest solution is to trigger a compile failure by deleting these constructors in the var class? As in:
...
var (const ReferenceCountedObject* object) = delete;
var& operator= (const ReferenceCountedObject* object) = delete;
};