Graphics properties as objects

[John W. Eaton]

On  5-Jan-2008, Michael Goffioul wrote:

| On 1/5/08, John W. Eaton <jwe at bevo.che.wisc.edu> wrote:
| > Is it even necessary to have the base class do reference counting
| > here?
| >
| > Since the properties are tied to the graphics objects that contain
| > them, shouldn't we only expect them to exist as long as the graphics
| > object exists?
| >
| > If individual properties do need to exist longer than the graphics
| > objects that contain them, then wouldn't it be sufficient to simply
| > have a copy of the property?  Aren't most (all) of the property
| > classes composed of objects that are already reference counted?  So
| > copying them should be relatively cheap and since they are passed
| > around by value, they should not be deleted unnecessarily?
| 
| I'm not sure I fully understand you. I agree with copying properties
| instead of const-referencing. However, if you want to have a map of
| all properties, how would you define it? std::map<caseless_str, XXX>?
| If XXX is "property" and you don't do reference couting, you will get
| a memory leak with dynamic properties (that wil only be stored in the
| map). Or maybe you mean simply to disable "somehow" reference
| counting for fixed properties?

Maybe I'm missing something fundamental, but I don't understand why
there would be a memory leak if the map contains values.  Can you give
a simple example that shows why that would happen?

jwe