Phil Bouchard wrote:
And an overview is available here: http://www.fornux.com/personal/philippe/devel/shifted_ptr/libs/smart_ptr/doc...
Please let me know if anything isn't clear enough.
It's not clear how shifted_ptr detects cyclic blocks of memory with no coding overhead. The methods with which I'm familiar require (a) the ability to enumerate all pointer subobjects in an object and (b) the ability to zero these pointers so as to break the cycles. Without some sort of registry that tracks all pointer instances (overhead on construction/destruction) (a) requires cooperation from the pointee, which shifted_ptr does not seem to demand. It's also not clear how cyclic structures are detected immediately. Doing this typically either requires a scan (collection cycle) on every pointer destruction, or some sort of housekeeping on each construction and copy. It is also not clear how well does the cyclic collector work when, in parallel, other threads create and destroy references to the objects being currently scanned.