[webkit-dev] Why are PassRefPtr<>s used as function parameters?

[Drew Wilson]

In this case, HTMLCollection() keeps a reference to the object, so you can't
safely pass in just a raw pointer. Since HTMLCollection keeps it around,
you'd have to do the ref anyway.

-atw

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Jens Alfke <snej at chromium.org> wrote:

> Looking at how refcounting is implemented in WebCore, I was surprised to
> find that there are a lot of functions/methods that take PassRefPtr<>s as
> parameters instead of regular pointers to those objects. I can't see any
> benefit to this, and it adds the overhead of a ref() and deref() at every
> call-site.
>
> For example in HTMLNameCollection.h:
>  HTMLNameCollection(PassRefPtr<Document>, CollectionType, const String&
> name);
>
> Why shouldn't this be
>  HTMLNameCollection(Document*, CollectionType, const String& name);
> ?
>
> The use of PassRefPtr instead of RefPtr here also seems prone to trouble,
> since inside the implementation of the method it could end up unexpectedly
> clearing the parameter:
>  HTMLNameCollection::HTMLNameCollection(Document* doc, .... {
>        Ref<Document> otherDoc = doc; // This sets doc to NULL!
>        doc->something(); // CRASH
> }
>
> I ran across this while trying to track down a reference leak of a Document
> object. As one of my last resorts I set a watchpoint on the object's
> m_refcount to see who refs/derefs it; but I had to give up because so many
> method calls, including the one above, keep constantly twiddling the
> refcount while passing the Document as a parameter.
>
> —Jens
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