resource structs and default constuction

[Erik Smith via Digitalmars-d]

I have a struct that uses RefCounted internally to manage a 
database environment.    It’s basically in the same boat as 
RefCounted itself in that it requires runtime construction.  Two 
things set it apart:

1) No-arg construction is required
2) The potential prevalence of this type in application code and 
getting default initialized by mistake.

This issue has been discussed before (see link below).  It would 
be nice if this could be addressed in the language at some point, 
but as far as I can tell, the best option I have now is to put 
version(assert) checks in all of my member functions to check for 
proper construction.

For the default construction issue, a factory function was 
suggested as an option.  I came up with the following approach:

struct Database {

      static Database create() {
           return Database("");
      }

      static Database create(A...)(auto ref A args) {
           return Database(args);
      }

      this(string uri) {…}
      this(Config config) {…}
      ...
}

The first static function provides a way to default construct.  
The 2nd static function provide uniformity with all of the other 
constructors that might be present.

Might this be a good idiom to apply for resource managing structs 
in general?

erik


previous forum discussion on default constructors:
http://forum.dlang.org/thread/fgldbozuneoldxjrwxje@forum.dlang.org?page=5