On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:09 PM, me22 <me22.ca@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Jason Cipriani > > <jason.cipriani@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Does std or boost have some kind of "smart pointers" that let me > > define the cleanup actions without having to write too much additional > > code? > > > > Yup, boost::shared_ptr (std::shared_ptr, in C++1x) will let you do that. > > boost::shared_ptr<xmlDoc> doc( xmlReadFile(...), xmlFreeDoc ); > if (!doc) throw something(); If the pointers never leave the scope, I would use boost::scoped_ptr. Since shared_ptr keeps a reference count, locks (or atomic operations) need to be used in order to make it thread safe. Use shared_ptr iff the ownership needs to be shared. Use auto_ptr iff the ownership needs to be transferred and the pointer must never be copied. Use scoped_ptr iff the life span of the memory ought to end when the local scope ends. Noel
