[boost] Is there any interest in a library that provides containers with virtual destructors?

25 Oct 2005

      I have read a few times that people sometimes wish that std::vector (or
other containers) had a virtual destructor.  I have recently wished
for the same thing and I fairly quickly write a class called
virtual_vector something like:

template <class Type, class Allo = std::allocator<Type> >
class virtual_vector {
public:
  ~virtual_vector();
  ...
private:
  std::vector<Type, Alloc> m_vector;
};

All the public methods of std::vector are present in virtual_vector and
are just forwarded on m_vector.

This allows one to write something like:

struct person {
  string first_name;
  string last_name;
};
class people : public virtual_vector<person>
{
public:
  //extra methods
};

Is this useful?
Has this been done already?

Thanks in advance for any comments?
  Andy Tompkins