On 16/03/2011 13:57, Dan Walters wrote:
Dear all,
I am posting to propose a new light weight pointer object library (boost.valid_ptr) that provides safe validity checking without having to take ownership or the the responsibility of memory management of the object pointed to.
The intention is to develop a useful pointer object that is easy to use and handles validity in a simple and invisible manner, to be used just like a normal pointer and in a way that a programmer would be familiar with, to produce cleaner and more intuitive code than other pointer libraries for its problem domain.
The library would be best used when it is difficult to determine when an object will be released, for example, when pointing to objects higher on the stack, objects that are members of other objects or objects contained within a boost.ptr_container.
The library is to be practically useful and most useful where boost.smart_ptr and boost.ptr_container libraries are not appropriate (for example, due to memory management or ownership not being required).
It seems very similar to what weak_ptr does, except it requires the object to be allocated through valid_wrapper rather than with shared_ptr. I like it because it's more lightweight though.