Creating an easy to maintain copy constructor

Question

Consider the following class:

class A {

char *p;
int a, b, c, d;

public:
   A(const &A);
};

Note that I have to define a copy constructor

Answer 1

You could separate your copyable members into a POD-struct and mantain your members requiring a managed copy separately.

As your data members are private this can be invisible to clients of your class.

E.g.

class A {

char *p;

struct POData {
    int a, b, c, d;
    // other copyable members
} data;

public:
   A(const &A);
};

A(const A& a)
    : data( a.data )
{
    p = DuplicateString( a.p );
    // other managed copies...
    // careful exception safe implementation, etc.
}