Edward Diener wrote:
Nevin ":-]" Liber wrote:
I believe that most people expect that if they pass an auto_ptr and an exception is thrown, then the auto_ptr has not relinquished ownership. Otherwise, why bother with an auto_ptr at all?
I would have assumed that if I pass an auto_ptr that ownership is relinquished no matter what happens later, exception or not. Is not that how the copy constructor of an auto_ptr is supposed to work ?
I agree -- auto_ptr's copy constructor has move semantics, and the copy (move) must be made before the function is entered (arguments can be evaluated in any order, but there's a sequence point before entering the function body). For the record, if the argument was an auto_ptr&, I would expect the auto_ptr to still own the resource if an exception was thrown, although I don't know how to implement it (moving back into the auto_ptr might throw too). --Jeffrey Bosboom