OK, add reinterpret_pointer_cast (I don't see why not, we need reinterpret_pointer_cast for the same reasons we need reinterpret_cast) to my request list, but the aliasing request is different: it doesn't simply treat a shared_ptr<T> as a shared_ptr<Y>.
Do you have a use case for reinterpret_pointer_cast?
Any use case of reinterpret_cast between unrelated pointer types is a use case for reinterpret_pointer_cast.
You don't need it to pass arbitrary shared_ptr<T>s into a function; shared_ptr<void> works fine for that.
I thought the same thing but Peter Dimov pointed out that you need to accomodate shared_ptr<void const> as well as shared_ptr<void volatile> and shared_ptr<void const volatile>, etc. So, instead of taking shared_ptr<void const volatile> in the aliasing constructor, it's just better to take shared_ptr<Y>. It doesn't really matter because all we do with is use its pn member, which is independent of the type of the shared_ptr.
What I need is a shared_ptr constructor, which takes a shared_ptr and a raw pointer, and returns a shared_ptr of the type of the raw pointer which points the same object the raw pointer points, but shares ownership (the "pn" member of shared_ptr) with the original shared_ptr:
Why do you want this? So it will delete both pointers?
I am not sure what "so it will delete both pointers" means, but I'm reasonably sure that's not what I want. :)
The code you've given would, I expect, have some serious problems. I think one of the pointers would get leaked and if it was the one from the original shared_ptr that leaked, a wrong deleter could be called on the new pointer.
The thing about shared_ptr is that the deleter has nothing to do with the px member of class shared_ptr. The px member is what operator*, operator->, and get() return. But px is not passed to the deleter when the object expires. Instead, the control block pointed to by the pn member of shared_ptr keeps the *original* pointer that was passed to the first of the (possibly) many shared_ptr objects that share ownership of a given object. The net effect of all this is that if somehow you change the px member of an existing shared_ptr, the object will not leak, and will be properly destroyed, no matter what px points to. With this in mind, consider this example: typedef int arr_type[10]; shared_ptr<arr_type> pa( new arr_type ); shared_ptr<int> pi( pa, &((*pa)[3]) ); //aliasing ctor pa.reset(); //won't destroy the array, pi keeps it afloat. (*pi) = 0; //zeroes the 4th int in the array. pi.reset(); //destroys the array passed to pa, not the int pi points. You can build a similar example for an object of class T being kept afloat by a shared_ptr<Y> to a member of type Y of the T object. --Emil Dotchevski