1 Abstract

We propose the addition of std::noncopyable and std::nonmovable, utility classes you can inherit from to make your class non-copyable and/or non-movable.

2 Motivation

Developers may want to declare that a class is a move-only type, i.e., that it is movable but non-copyable. This is often useful for RAII classes that must not duplicate the resource they manage. Similarly, developers may want to declare that a class is neither movable nor copyable. Consider the following example that deals with a legacy API:

```cpp
extern "C" RegisterCallbackInLegacyAPI(
      void (* callback)(void const*), void const* context);

static void callback(void const* context) noexcept;

class legacy_callback {
    legacy_callback(legacy_callback const&) = delete;
    legacy_callback& operator=(legacy_callback const&) = delete;

    void register_callback() noexcept {
        RegisterCallbackInLegacyAPI(callback, this);
    }
};

extern "C" RegisterCallbackInLegacyAPI(
      void (* callback)(void const*), void const* context);

static void callback(void const* context) noexcept;

class legacy_callback : std::nonmovable {


    void register_callback() noexcept {
        RegisterCallbackInLegacyAPI(callback, this);
    }
};

Passing the this pointer as context to a legacy callback requires that this remains constant. std::mutex is also an object that is neither copyable nor movable.

By declaring the copy-constructor and the copy-assignment operator of a class as deleted, developers can make their own classes non-copyable and non-movable. This seems straight-forward. Yet, users get this wrong. Indeed, two very popular StackOverflow answers on how to make an object non-copyable and non-movable were initially wrong, as the comments show. 1 2.

Many libraries such as boost have introduced a type called noncopyable (or similar) that user-defined classes can derive from and that deletes both copy-construction and copy-assignment. Deriving from noncopyable lets users declare their intent clearly and succinctly. 3 4 5 6 7 8

A code search for “noncopyable” yields almost 5000 hits. It has thus clearly become a common idiom that is frequently used and reimplemented and therefore deserves to be included in the standard library.

3 Naming

Unfortunately, boost::noncopyable (and all other referenced implementations except 8) makes a class non-copyable and non-movable because the implementation of boost::noncopyable precedes the introduction of move semantics. This collides with the names of already standardized concepts std::copyable and std::movable. A class may not satisfy std::copyable yet may be std::movable. We propose to introduce types noncopyable and nonmovable that match the names of the already standardized concepts. Thus, a class deriving from noncopyable cannot satisfy std::copyable but may satisfy std::movable. A class deriving from nonmovable cannot satisfy std::movable and thus cannot satisfy std::copyable either.

Type noncopyable could also be called moveonly or move_only.

According to codesearch.isocpp.org, the name nonmovable has only been used in the test framework for the range v3 library together with a type moveonly. The alternative spelling move_only has also often been used in test frameworks for libcxx, libstdc++, boost.hana and gcc.

4 Proposed Implementation

We propose the following definitions for both classes:

struct noncopyable {
    noncopyable() = default;
    noncopyable(noncopyable&&) = default;
    noncopyable& operator=(noncopyable&&) = default;
};

struct nonmovable {
    nonmovable() = default;
    nonmovable(nonmovable const&) = delete;
    nonmovable& operator=(nonmovable const&) = delete;
};

In both classes, the default constructor is declared as default and is thus trivial. noncopyable and nonmovable are therefore empty standard layout classes and “empty base optimization” is required when deriving from either. Deriving from noncopyable or nonmovable therefore incurs no space or runtime overhead.

5 Acknowledgements

We thank Alisdair Meredith for the original paper proposing to standardize the behavior of boost::noncopyable. [N2675].

6 Wording

Add to header <utility> synopsis in 22.2.1 [utility.syn]

// [utility.noncopyable], class noncopyable
namespace noncopyable-adl-namespace {
   struct noncopyable;
}
using noncopyable-nonmovable-adl-namespace::noncopyable;

// [utility.nonmovable], class nonmovable
namespace nonmovable-adl-namespace {
   struct nonmovable;
}
using nonmovable-adl-namespace::nonmovable;

Append a new section to 22.2 [utility]

namespace noncopyable-adl-namespace {
    struct noncopyable {
        noncopyable() = default;
        noncopyable(noncopyable&&) = default;
        noncopyable& operator=(noncopyable&&) = default;
    };
}
using noncopyable-adl-namespace::noncopyable;

class file : std::noncopyable {
public:
    file(std::string const& strPath)
     : fp(std::fopen(strPath.c_str(), "w"))
    {}

    file(file&& f) : fp(std::exchange(f.fp, nullptr)) {}
    file& operator=(file&& f) { ... }

    ~file() { if(fp) std::fclose(fp); }
private:
    std::FILE* fp;
};

namespace nonmovable-adl-namespace {
    struct nonmovable {
        nonmovable() = default;
        nonmovable(nonmovable const&) = delete;
        nonmovable& operator=(nonmovable const&) = delete;
    };
}
using nonmovable-adl-namespace::nonmovable;

class mutex : std::nonmovable {
public:
    mutex();
    ~mutex();
};

7 References