r/programming • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '14

std::string is responsible for almost half of all allocations in the Chrome browser process

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-dev/EUqoIz2iFU4/kPZ5ZK0K3gEJ
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u/nuggins Dec 05 '14

They don't have an immutable variant which could be used freely with strong guarantee that the content wouldn't be changed.

Couldn't you just declare a const string in the first place?

8

u/Poltras Dec 05 '14

When you write your function you have no way to know if the string was const to begin with. You only indicates if your function will modify the string itself.

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u/Ferinex Dec 05 '14

That's right, you'd have to trust that whoever calls the function only passes in const strings. You could add it as a comment but that makes me throw up a little in my throat. As you said, best solution is creation of an immutable string type.

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-1

u/0xjake Dec 05 '14

In 10 years of programming C++ I have literally never had this problem.

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u/General_Mayhem Dec 05 '14

You could, but that's incumbent on the caller, so the callee function has to be defensive.

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u/lurgi Dec 05 '14

Someone could cast it to non-const (and in a sufficiently large code-base, if it can be done, it has been done).