/****************************************************************************
 * Core Library Version 1.7, August 2004
 * Copyright (c) 1995-2004 Exact Computation Project
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * This file is part of CGAL (www.cgal.org).
 * You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
 * either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * Licensees holding a valid commercial license may use this file in
 * accordance with the commercial license agreement provided with the
 * software.
 *
 * This file is provided AS IS with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE
 * WARRANTY OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 *
 *
 * File: RefCount.h
 * Synopsis: 
 *     1. This file defines two templated classes:
 *               RCRepImpl<class N>
 *     to create Reps of the class N.  The basic functions provided by
 *     this class is reference counting.   The other class is
 *               RCImpl<class T>
 *     for implementing the envelop-letter paradigm for a class whose Rep
 *     is the class T.  So, T is the "letter", and RCImpl<T> the "envelop".
 *
 *     2. All Rep classes (BigIntRep, BigFloatRep, BigRatRep, ExprRep, etc)
 *     are derived from RCRepImpl<N>.  E.g.,
 *
 *         class BigRatRep : public RCRepImp<BigRatRep> {
 *         ...
 *         }
 *     (Note the recursive use of "BigRatRep").
 *
 *     3. All Number classes (BigInt, BigFloat, BigRat, Expr, etc)
 *     are derived from RCImpl<T>.  E.g.
 *
 *         typedef RCImpl<BigRatRep> RCBigRat;
 *         class BigRat : public RCBigRat {
 *         ...
 *         }
 * 
 * Written by 
 *       Zilin Du <zilin@cs.nyu.edu>
 *       Chee Yap <yap@cs.nyu.edu>
 *
 * WWW URL: http://cs.nyu.edu/exact/
 * Email: exact@cs.nyu.edu
 *
 * $URL$
 * $Id$
 ***************************************************************************/


#ifndef _CORE_REFCOUNT_H_
#define _CORE_REFCOUNT_H_

namespace CORE { 

template<class Deriving>
class RCRepImpl {
public:
  RCRepImpl() : refCount(1) {}
  void incRef() {
    ++refCount;
  }
  // Without static_cast this to Deriving*,
  // the destructor of Deriving class will never been called.
  // this is an example of simulating dynamic binding from ATL.
  void decRef() {
    if (--refCount == 0)
      delete static_cast<Deriving*>(this);
  }
  int getRefCount() const {
    return refCount;
  }
private:
  int refCount;
};

template<class T>
class RCImpl {
protected:
  RCImpl(T* p) : rep(p) {}
  RCImpl(const RCImpl& x) : rep(x.rep) {}
  T* rep; ///<= rep is the actual representation
public:
  /// get rep (const)
  const T& getRep() const {
    return *rep;
  }
  /// get rep (non-const)
  T& getRep() {
    return *rep;
  }

  
  /// clone data
  void makeCopy() {
    if (rep->getRefCount() > 1) {
      T* oldValue = rep;
      rep->decRef(); // safe since rep has been referred at least once.
      rep = oldValue ? new T(*oldValue) : 0; 
    }
  }
 
#ifdef CORE_RC_DEBUG
  /// get counter
  int getRefCount() const {
    return rep->getRefCount();
  }
#endif
};

} //namespace CORE
#endif // _CORE_REFCOUNT_H_
