Cuberite Forum

Hi there, I'm new here and will probably be contributing bits here and there whenever I find time.

Now for the other reason behind this thread. I have a static (member) object Tracer::m_NormalTable and need to make sure it isn't used by other static objects before it's initialized. (i.e., calls Tracer::Trace)
Further explanation: https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/ctors#static-init-order

There are two options:

1. Initialize on first use
   • Everything works fine. Nobody else needs to care about this.
     
   • m_NormalTable isn't destructed and 'leaks'
     
   
   
   
2. Only add a big fat comment to the Tracer class
   • Has a 50/50 chance of spawning Godzilla, causing cancer or starting a thermonuclear war when someone does use it in another static object
     
   • Doesn't leak
     

Which one should be preferred for this project? Option 1 is safer, but causes a small memory leak when the program exits. Option 2 can have catastrophic consequences if someone doesn't know about this.

Mostly this project has in the past gone for option 2. Its only recently that we've started moving over to a third option which is newly safer in c++11. Create a free/static getter function with a local static variable. See cLogger::GetInstance() for an example.

I just want to note that cTracer is deprecated. cLineBlockTracer should be used if possible.

Hello, welcome to the forum

The local static variable is still not safe in MSVC2013, since it doesn't implement "magic statics" yet; it is finally available in MSVC2015. Still, it is the best option out there I guess.

Or maybe the best option would be to get rid of the class altogether. It is poorly documented, no-one really knows what it does, exactly, and it is only used in a few places; as STR already said, we have a newer class for the kind of work this class was expected to perform, with a much improved interface and cleaner documentation.

I think we planned on removing cTracer since cLineBlockTracer was implemented, so I think we should remove it.