"Phil Endecott" <spam_from_boost_dev@chezphil.org> wrote in message news:1261336563627@dmwebmail.dmwebmail.chezphil.org...
Dear All,
I have just had a quick look at how easily shared_ptr could be adapted to use Helge's proposed Boost.Atomic.
Apologies for perhaps going slightly offtopic/broadening the discussion, but wouldn't it be even better if the whole boost smart_ptr 'architecture' was refactored to extract/separate all of the orthogonal functionality/concepts that could then be used to build whatever specific smart pointers we like: - reference count: none, single threaded, multi threaded, COM ... - deleter: fixed, statically specified, dynamically specified - copy semantics: move, deep, shallow, shared, disabled/scoped - 'unused bits usage'/data 'compression'/injection': none, based on type alignement, platform... - empty/null pointer dereference handler: crash, assert, throw, return a static/global/default value/instance... - weak_ptr... ... It would also make it easier to merge the knowledge and functionality currently existing in the private shared_ptr's reference count implementation with boost::atomic and at the same time we would get a public/'official' and reusable boost reference count implementation... I'd volunteer to work/help on such a change. -- "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history." Aldous Huxley