"Daniel Frey" <d.frey@gmx.de> wrote in message news:dvghr5$j1j$1@sea.gmane.org...

Hello Boosters,

haven't found whether or not this was proposed before, so here we go: What about adding an operator[] to shared_ptr:

[...]

#include <cstddef> // for std::size_t

[...]

// e.g. below operator*

reference operator[] (std::size_t index) const // never throws { BOOST_ASSERT(px != 0); return px[index]; }

[...]

This makes it easier to wrap memory from system calls:

Before:

char** sym = ::backtrace_symbols(addr,n);

// Lots of code here sym[0]; // access sym by index

::free(sym); // could be forgotten, code in between could throw, ...

After:

shared_ptr< char* > p( ::backtrace_symbols(addr,n), &::free );

// Lots of code here, allowed to throw now :) sym[0]; // still access by index, no funny syntax needed

// no need to call ::free explicitly :)

Hope you get the idea :)

What do you think? Any problem with adding operator[] to make it more similar to a plain old C-pointer (while still being safe AFAICT)?

I think you should use a shared_array here. shared_array<char *> p(( ::backtrace_symbols(addr,n), &::free ); Joe Gottman