I don't understand C++ well enough to grok a compiler's interpretation of the code, but I seems like I'm creating an extra copy for the return. Oh well, if the snippet seems ok, far be it from me to throw asparagus on it. ;) Thanks for the help. "Edward Diener" <eddielee@tropic To: boost-users@yahoogroups.com soft.com> cc: Sent by: news Subject: [Boost-Users] Re: "Correct" way to return empty shared_ptr? <news@main.gmane .org> 04/23/2003 05:47 PM Please respond to Boost-Users dick.bridges@tais.com wrote:

What is the 'correct' way to return a NULL/empty shared_ptr? For example, this works

<snippet> shared_ptr<int> maybe_get_a_pointer() { shared_ptr<int> p; return(p); } </snippet>

but seems 'klunky'. I've clearly missed something in the docs/examples somewhere. Can someone point me in the right direction?

What is klunky about it ? It seems pretty normal to me. Another other possibility is to passed a reference to a shared_ptr<> and have your function above fill it in with an actual pointer to int and return a bool true if it succeeded or false if it did not. Another possibility is to use boost::optional<>. Another one to pass back a bool,shared_ptr<> std::pair or boost::tuple. But I prefer the method you used originally. Info: <http://www.boost.org> Wiki: <http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl> Unsubscribe: <mailto:boost-users-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/