Pavel Vozenilek wrote:
Maybe function
template<.....> T* unsafe_get_pointer(singleton<T>::pointer&) { ... }
would be enough. Having one more class for just one function feels as overkill.
Local need for raw pointer should not mean possibly global change in design.
/Pavel
I'm terribly torn on this issue. Use of a raw singleton pointer is dangerous if it remains in use for a long period of time, specifically long enough for the instance to have a possibility of being destroyed. If the singleton uses a real locking policy the code using the raw pointer would have to lock the operations manually. On the other hand, a raw pointer is the only really feasible way to pass a singleton pointer as a pointer to a non singleton base class. Example: class LoggerBase { public: virtual void Log ( const char * msg ) = 0; }; class GlobalLog : public singleton < GlobalLog >, public LoggerBase { public: virtual void Log ( const char * msg ) { // write to file or something } }; void PerformOperation ( vector < LoggerBase * > listeners, /*other operands*/ ) { if ( shit_happens ) { // use lambda and for_each to write a message to each log in listeners // (I don't know the lambda library so I can't write this code myself. I should take next weekend to learn it, it looks really handy) } } Thus, at this point my thought is that the C++ motto is 'trust the programmer', so I'm thinking I should just provide the unsafe_raw_ptr ( ) member in the singleton, surround it with comments in all caps, and document the heck out of it. -Jason