Extended STL, Volume 1: Collections and Iterators

Chapter 18. Intermezzo: Constructor Clashes and Design That Is, If Not Bad, At Least Ill-Conceived for Seamless Evolution

	Good design adds value faster than it adds cost.
	--Thomas C. Gale

At this point, I must confess that the constructors shown in Listing 17.8 and described in Section 17.3.5 are not actually the real form. To understand the actual form and the reasons for differing from the ideal presented earlier, we must consider the history of the class.

The original version of the class had just two, non-template, constructors:

glob_sequence(char_type const*  directory
            , int               flags = noSort); //  NT1
glob_sequence(char_type const*  directory
            , char_type const*  pattern
            , int               flags = noSort); //  NT2

For good or ill, this means that updates to the ...