Nevin wrote on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:44:15:
If you are requesting a feature where delete p does the same thing as p.reset(), that sounds like a very bad idea to me, because the expected semantics of the former (that the object is destroyed) is not what you get with the latter (the object is only destroyed when no one owns it). Not to mention error-prone as smart pointers should be discouraging people from ever explicitly delete-ing objects.
it can be applied to any smart pointer type shared_ptr is just the first that came to my (excited) mind i believe that more complete imitation of plain c pointers makes smart pointers better even in the case of smart_ptr possibility to use 'delete p;' construct is a good idea when you write a line like this delete p; your intention is that you no longer need the data pointed to by 'p' and it renders more consistent than p.reset(); or anything similar furthermore this can simplify template programming here is an example template<typename ptr_t> void takes_ownership(ptr_t p) { //do something with the data delete p; } takes_ownership(new data_t); //takes ownership shared_ptr<data_t> p = new data_t; takes_ownership(p); //or does it? and at last can you please give a couple of reasons why delete'ing smart pointers is a bad idea? -- Pavel P.S. if you notice a grammar mistake or weird phrasing in my message please point it out