$ curl cheat.sh/

// RAII stands for "Resource Acquisition Is Initialization".
// It is often considered the most powerful paradigm in C++
// and is the simple concept that a constructor for an object
// acquires that object's resources and the destructor releases them.

// To understand how this is useful,
// consider a function that uses a C file handle:
void doSomethingWithAFile(const char* filename)
{
    // To begin with, assume nothing can fail.

    FILE* fh = fopen(filename, "r"); // Open the file in read mode.

    doSomethingWithTheFile(fh);
    doSomethingElseWithIt(fh);

    fclose(fh); // Close the file handle.
}

// Unfortunately, things are quickly complicated by error handling.
// Suppose fopen can fail, and that doSomethingWithTheFile and
// doSomethingElseWithIt return error codes if they fail.
//  (Exceptions are the preferred way of handling failure,
//   but some programmers, especially those with a C background,
//   disagree on the utility of exceptions).
// We now have to check each call for failure and close the file handle
// if a problem occurred.
bool doSomethingWithAFile(const char* filename)
{
    FILE* fh = fopen(filename, "r"); // Open the file in read mode
    if (fh == nullptr) // The returned pointer is null on failure.
        return false; // Report that failure to the caller.

    // Assume each function returns false if it failed
    if (!doSomethingWithTheFile(fh)) {
        fclose(fh); // Close the file handle so it doesn't leak.
        return false; // Propagate the error.
    }
    if (!doSomethingElseWithIt(fh)) {
        fclose(fh); // Close the file handle so it doesn't leak.
        return false; // Propagate the error.
    }

    fclose(fh); // Close the file handle so it doesn't leak.
    return true; // Indicate success
}

// C programmers often clean this up a little bit using goto:
bool doSomethingWithAFile(const char* filename)
{
    FILE* fh = fopen(filename, "r");
    if (fh == nullptr)
        return false;

    if (!doSomethingWithTheFile(fh))
        goto failure;

    if (!doSomethingElseWithIt(fh))
        goto failure;

    fclose(fh); // Close the file
    return true; // Indicate success

failure:
    fclose(fh);
    return false; // Propagate the error
}

// If the functions indicate errors using exceptions,
// things are a little cleaner, but still sub-optimal.
void doSomethingWithAFile(const char* filename)
{
    FILE* fh = fopen(filename, "r"); // Open the file in shared_ptrread mode
    if (fh == nullptr)
        throw std::runtime_error("Could not open the file.");

    try {
        doSomethingWithTheFile(fh);
        doSomethingElseWithIt(fh);
    }
    catch (...) {
        fclose(fh); // Be sure to close the file if an error occurs.
        throw; // Then re-throw the exception.
    }

    fclose(fh); // Close the file
    // Everything succeeded
}

// Compare this to the use of C++'s file stream class (fstream)
// fstream uses its destructor to close the file.
// Recall from above that destructors are automatically called
// whenever an object falls out of scope.
void doSomethingWithAFile(const std::string& filename)
{
    // ifstream is short for input file stream
    std::ifstream fh(filename); // Open the file

    // Do things with the file
    doSomethingWithTheFile(fh);
    doSomethingElseWithIt(fh);

} // The file is automatically closed here by the destructor

// This has _massive_ advantages:
// 1. No matter what happens,
//    the resource (in this case the file handle) will be cleaned up.
//    Once you write the destructor correctly,
//    It is _impossible_ to forget to close the handle and leak the resource.
// 2. Note that the code is much cleaner.
//    The destructor handles closing the file behind the scenes
//    without you having to worry about it.
// 3. The code is exception safe.
//    An exception can be thrown anywhere in the function and cleanup
//    will still occur.

// All idiomatic C++ code uses RAII extensively for all resources.
// Additional examples include
// - Memory using unique_ptr and shared_ptr
// - Containers - the standard library linked list,
//   vector (i.e. self-resizing array), hash maps, and so on
//   all automatically destroy their contents when they fall out of scope.
// - Mutexes using lock_guard and unique_lock

$

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