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Last edited by Mark Olesen

v2012 Developer Upgrade Guide

home user upgrade code

Deprecation and Removal

Deprecated Methods

Compile-type deprecate the empty() method for autoPtr/tmp. This was never used by tmp, and only used in a few places by autoPtr. Less clutter and clearer to use plain tests with the bool operator. Eg,

if (!ptr) ...  vs  if (ptr.empty())  ...
if (ptr)  ...  vs  if (!ptr.empty()) ...

Deprecate labelRange::valid() in favour of using labelRange::empty() or the bool operator. For example,

if (range) ...
vs
if (range.valid()) ...   // older

Removed Methods

The autoPtr copy assigment is now marked as = delete. This was previously marked as transitional/deprecated (2018-02), but is now deleted since it can cause unexpected stealing of the pointer. Use the move assignment operator if that was indeed your intention.

Removed Items

  • removed labelRange::null, scalarRange::null static variables, which turned out to be not particularly useful since we can simply use constexpr contructor forms in most places.

  • removed labelRange::identity(label) static method, which is replaced by the single-parameter constructor.

Changes in behaviour

Improve flexiblity for flat output of items by changing to templated implementation instead of relying on the container's writeList() method. This inlines the generation while also adding the flexibility to define different delimiters (at compile time) without the performance penalty of passing run-time parameters.

Mesh shape matching

Added static test methods for matching simple cell shapes (tet, pyr, hex) which can be identified from their number of faces and vertices.

For these common shapes the static test() method is much cheaper to call on individual basis than the virtual isA() method since it avoids the unnecessary overhead of constructing an object.

Memory containers

Introduced refPtr to the collection of memory containers. This looks largely like tmp in that it can hold a reference or a pointer, but unlike tmp it does not use ref-counting or have any special field functions associated with it. Both refPtr and tmp can now have three different types of content:

  • PTR : Managing a pointer (not ref-counted)
  • CREF : Using (const) reference to an object
  • REF : Using (non-const) reference to an object

Access:

  • Assignment to pointer is normally done with the reset() method, similar to autoPtr and std::unique_ptr.
  • Assignment to a const reference and constant dereferencing use the cref() method.
  • Assignment to a non-const reference and non-const dereferencing use the ref() method. Construction:
  • Construct from pointer
  • Construct from const reference
  • No construct from non-const reference, to avoid ambiguities.

This allows us to tag a tmp as allowing non-const access to the reference and skip additional const_cast in following code. For example,

tmp<volScalarField> tfld(nullptr);
auto* ptr = getObjectPtr<volScalarField>("field");
if (ptr)
{
    tfld.ref(*ptr);
}
else
{
    tfld.reset(volScalarField::New(...));
}
auto& fld = tfld.ref();

In some places refPtr and tmp can be used instead of a std::reference_wrapper for handling external references.

Unlike std::reference_wrapper, it can be default constructed (holding nothing), whereas reference_wrapper may need a dummy reference. However, the lifetime extension of references may be better served with reference_wrapper.

Ease of programming

For easier programming of parallel logic, introduced Pstream::allProcs() and Pstream::subProcs() methods that return ranges of int values that can be iterated across. For example,

for (const int proci : Pstream::allProcs()) { ... }

// previously
for (int proci = 0; proci < Pstream::nProcs(); ++proci) { ... }

and

for (const int proci : Pstream::subProcs()) { ... }


// previously
for (int slave = Pstream::firstSlave(); proci <= Pstream::lastSlave(); ++proci) { ... }

For case where parallel logic needs to be temporarily suspended, the new UPstream::parRun(bool) can be used. For example,

const bool oldParRun = Pstream::parRun(false);

...
// restore
Pstream::parRun(oldParRun);

Compatibility

Add some scalar constants for .org compatibility. Although it can very much be a moving target, it can prove partly useful to have some compatibility constants/methods.

  • The wholesale change of 'GREAT' -> 'great' etc (JAN-2018), makes user coding for multiple versions problematic. When COMPAT_OPENFOAM_ORG is defined, now define constants (aliases) named as per the openfoam.org version. Values, however, remain identical.

  • For type-safe dictionary value retrieval, we have the templated get<> methods added around NOV-2018 and deprecated the lookupType method. The .org version followed suit in NOV-2019, but opted for renaming the templated lookupType method as a templated 'lookup' method. Using this is discouraged, but allowed when COMPAT_OPENFOAM_ORG is defined.