How do I make this C++ object non-copyable?

anon picture anon · Jan 31, 2010 · Viewed 58.9k times · Source

See title.

I have:

class Foo {
   private:
     Foo();
   public:
     static Foo* create();
}

What need I do from here to make Foo un-copyable?

Thanks!

Answer

Klaim picture Klaim · Feb 1, 2010
class Foo {
   private:
     Foo();
     Foo( const Foo& ); // non construction-copyable
     Foo& operator=( const Foo& ); // non copyable
   public:
     static Foo* create();
}

If you're using boost, you can also inherit from noncopyable : http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_41_0/boost/noncopyable.hpp

EDIT: C++11 version if you have a compiler supporting this feature:

class Foo {
   private:
     Foo();
   public:
     Foo( const Foo& ) = delete; // non construction-copyable
     Foo& operator=( const Foo& ) = delete; // non copyable

     static Foo* create();
}

Note that deleted methods should be public: https://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines#Rc-delete