C++ Problem Casting RawDateTime::View to struct tm

Question

Hi,
I am writing a C++ client (using release 3.5.1 on Windows) and having problems casting a RawDateTime::View to a struct tm. The code snippet that gives me the problem is:
<pre>
RawDateTime::View dateTime = hIn->readRawDateTime(Stock::TIMESTAMP);
struct tm timeinfo = dateTime; // cast error
</pre>
The compilation error I get in Visual C++ 2008 is:
<pre>
Error     27     error C2440: 'initializing' : cannot convert from 'coherence::lang::TypedHandle<T>' to 'tm'     d:\documentation\oracle\soa\coherence\training\my c++ training\code\c++client\coherencec++application\coherencec++application\stockserializer.cpp     48     CoherenceC++Application
</pre>
But I cannot understand why it does not work because the RawDateTime object has an overloaded assignment operator for a struct tm. Any help would be much appreciated.
Dave

Answer 1

Hi Dave,
I'm sorry for your continued troubles with this. I've just tested the code snippet out in Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008, and GCC, and have been unable to replicate the issue. I'm still puzzled by the text of the error, as it refers to the creation of a RawDateTime from a "struct tm*", not the conversion from a RawDateTime to a "struct tm". For instance the following purposefully incorrect code will yield the exact error you are seeing.
struct tm timeinfo;
RawDateTime::create(&timeinfo, true);
Such code could certainly be part of your serialization routine, the bug in the above code is that we are passing a tm* rather then a tm. The corrected version simply removes the &, and compiles fine:
struct tm timeinfo;
RawDateTime::create(timeinfo, true);
Can you please ensure that you don't have code such as the following nearby. If this does not resolve the issue it would be great if you could post a small stand alone full-source example which demonstrates the issue. I'd be happy to see if I can then reproduce and debug the issue on my end. Also you may want to see if our C++ examples (http://coherence.oracle.com/display/COH35UG/Examples) will build successfully for you, they make use of the same technique in ContactSerializer.cpp though for RawDate.
thanks,
Mark
Oracle Coherence