Re: weak_ptr... no * or ->?

11 Jul 2002

      --- In Boost-Users@y..., "Peter Dimov"  wrote:
...
From: "Mark Storer" 
...
So the only purpose of a weak_ptr is to be able to grab a 
shared_ptr from
it
(and to avoid circular references, of course)?
Yes. The "idiomatic" use is:
weak_ptr<X> wp;
// ...
if(shared_ptr<X> p = make_shared(wp))
{
// use p
}
else
{
// target lost
}
Well, you could write the weak_ptr<>::operator-> to "do the right 
thing":

shared_ptr<T> weak_ptr<T>::operator->()
{
   shared_ptr<T> p = make_shared(wp);
   if (!p)
     throw "something";
   return p;
}

I can see several reasons to not want to do this (mostly to do with 
performance), though.

Bill Kempf

Re: weak_ptr... no * or ->?

bill_kempf