Checking if this is null

Does it ever make sense to check if this is null?

Say I have a class with a method; inside that method, I check this == NULL, and if it is, return an error code.

If this is null, then that means the object is deleted. Is the method even able to return anything?

Update: I forgot to mention that the method can be called from multiple threads and it may cause the object to be deleted while another thread is inside the method.

Solution 1:

Does it ever make sense to check for this==null? I found this while doing a code review.

In standard C++, it does not, because any call on a null pointer is already undefined behavior, so any code relying on such checks is non-standard (there's no guarantee that the check will even be executed).

Note that this holds true for non-virtual functions as well.

Some implementations permit this==0, however, and consequently libraries written specifically for those implementations will sometimes use it as a hack. A good example of such a pair is VC++ and MFC - I don't recall the exact code, but I distinctly remember seeing if (this == NULL) checks in MFC source code somewhere.

It may also be there as a debugging aid, because at some point in the past this code was hit with this==0 because of a mistake in the caller, so a check was inserted to catch future instances of that. An assert would make more sense for such things, though.

If this == null then that means the object is deleted.

No, it doesn't mean that. It means that a method was called on a null pointer, or on a reference obtained from a null pointer (though obtaining such a reference is already U.B.). This has nothing to do with delete, and does not require any objects of this type to have ever existed.

Solution 2:

Your note about threads is worrisome. I'm pretty sure you have a race condition that can lead to a crash. If a thread deletes an object and zeros the pointer, another thread could make a call through that pointer between those two operations, leading to this being non-null and also not valid, resulting in a crash. Similarly, if a thread calls a method while another thread is in the middle of creating the object, you may also get a crash.

Short answer, you really need to use a mutex or something to synchonize access to this variable. You need to ensure that this is never null or you're going to have problems.

Solution 3:

I know that this is old but I feel like now that we're dealing with C++11-17 somebody should mention lambdas. If you capture this into a lambda that is going to be called asynchronously at a later point in time, it is possible that your "this" object gets destroyed before that lambda is invoked.

i.e passing it as a callback to some time-expensive function that is run from a separate thread or just asynchronously in general

EDIT: Just to be clear, the question was "Does it ever make sense to check if this is null" I am merely offering a scenario where it does make sense that might become more prevalent with the wider use of modern C++.

Contrived example: This code is completely runable. To see unsafe behavior just comment out the call to safe behavior and uncomment the unsafe behavior call.

#include <memory>
#include <functional>
#include <iostream>
#include <future>

class SomeAPI
{
public:
    SomeAPI() = default;

    void DoWork(std::function<void(int)> cb)
    {
        DoAsync(cb);
    }

private:
    void DoAsync(std::function<void(int)> cb)
    {
        std::cout << "SomeAPI about to do async work\n";
        m_future = std::async(std::launch::async, [](auto cb)
        {
            std::cout << "Async thread sleeping 10 seconds (Doing work).\n";
            std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::seconds{ 10 });
            // Do a bunch of work and set a status indicating success or failure.
            // Assume 0 is success.
            int status = 0;
            std::cout << "Executing callback.\n";
            cb(status);
            std::cout << "Callback Executed.\n";
        }, cb);
    };
    std::future<void> m_future;
};

class SomeOtherClass
{
public:
    void SetSuccess(int success) { m_success = success; }
private:
    bool m_success = false;
};
class SomeClass : public std::enable_shared_from_this<SomeClass>
{
public:
    SomeClass(SomeAPI* api)
        : m_api(api)
    {
    }

    void DoWorkUnsafe()
    {
        std::cout << "DoWorkUnsafe about to pass callback to async executer.\n";
        // Call DoWork on the API.
        // DoWork takes some time.
        // When DoWork is finished, it calls the callback that we sent in.
        m_api->DoWork([this](int status)
        {
            // Undefined behavior
            m_value = 17;
            // Crash
            m_data->SetSuccess(true);
            ReportSuccess();
        });
    }

    void DoWorkSafe()
    {
        // Create a weak point from a shared pointer to this.
        std::weak_ptr<SomeClass> this_ = shared_from_this();
        std::cout << "DoWorkSafe about to pass callback to async executer.\n";
        // Capture the weak pointer.
        m_api->DoWork([this_](int status)
        {
            // Test the weak pointer.
            if (auto sp = this_.lock())
            {
                std::cout << "Async work finished.\n";
                // If its good, then we are still alive and safe to execute on this.
                sp->m_value = 17;
                sp->m_data->SetSuccess(true);
                sp->ReportSuccess();
            }
        });
    }
private:
    void ReportSuccess()
    {
        // Tell everyone who cares that a thing has succeeded.
    };

    SomeAPI* m_api;
    std::shared_ptr<SomeOtherClass> m_data = std::shared_ptr<SomeOtherClass>();
    int m_value;
};

int main()
{
    std::shared_ptr<SomeAPI> api = std::make_shared<SomeAPI>();
    std::shared_ptr<SomeClass> someClass = std::make_shared<SomeClass>(api.get());

    someClass->DoWorkSafe();

    // Comment out the above line and uncomment the below line
    // to see the unsafe behavior.
    //someClass->DoWorkUnsafe();

    std::cout << "Deleting someClass\n";
    someClass.reset();

    std::cout << "Main thread sleeping for 20 seconds.\n";
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::seconds{ 20 });

    return 0;
}

Solution 4:

FWIW, I have used debugging checks for (this != NULL) in assertions before which have helped catch defective code. Not that the code would have necessarily gotten too far with out a crash, but on small embedded systems that don't have memory protection, the assertions actually helped.

On systems with memory protection, the OS will generally hit an access violation if called with a NULL this pointer, so there's less value in asserting this != NULL. However, see Pavel's comment for why it's not necessarily worthless on even protected systems.