Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu

Author:Andrei Alexandrescu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pearson Education Limited (US titles)
Published: 2001-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

7.1. Smart Pointers 101

So what’s a smart pointer? A smart pointer is a C++ class that mimics a regular pointer in syntax and some semantics, but it does more. Because smart pointers to different types of objects tend to have a lot of code in common, almost all good-quality smart pointers in existence are templated by the pointee type, as you can see in the following code:

Click here to view code image

template <class T>

class SmartPtr

{

public:

explicit SmartPtr(T* pointee) : pointee_(pointee) {...}

SmartPtr& operator=(const SmartPtr& other);

~SmartPtr();

T& operator*() const

{

...

return *pointee_;

}

T* operator->() const

{

...

return pointee_;

}

private:

T* pointee_;

...

};

SmartPtr<T> aggregates a pointer to T in its member variable pointee_. That’s what most smart pointers do. In some cases, a smart pointer might aggregate some handles to data and compute the pointer on the fly.

The two operators give SmartPtr pointer-like syntax and semantics. That is, you can write

class Widget

{

public:

void Fun();

};

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