[boost] RFC - lifetime management

From: Johan Torp (johan.torp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-09-11 16:20:48

I'd love to get some feedback on a tiny utility I've been thinking about.

I oftenly create small objects which I just want to keep alive as long
as some other object exists. It is often RAII objects, but many other
types of small classes fall into this category.

A simple "user heap" could take ownership of such instances and delay
deletion until itself is deleted. The basic interface of - let's call
it heap - would look like this:

  template<class T> T& heap::put(T*);

Example usage:

     boost::shared_ptr<SomeView> view;
     // Keep controller alive while view exits
     view->get_heap().put(new SomeController(*view));

For classes with loads of RAII object members, usage could look like this:

  class Foo {
    Foo()  {
      keep_alive_.put(new RAIIBar(...));
      keep_alive_.put(new RAIIWhatever(...));
    }
  private:
    heap keep_alive_;
  };

Support should be added for putting shared_ptrs and auto_ptrs. I have
a wide variety of naming suggestions and an extended interface for
premature deletion but I'll save those for a later post.

What do you think? Please give me your thoughts.

Johan