RE: [boost] On ownership policies and boost::raw_ptr

From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (agurtovoy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-06-24 17:46:01

Peter Dimov wrote:
> get_pointer is somewhat overloaded in the sense that mem_fn allows
> get_pointer to return anything usable in a get_pointer(x)->*f(...)
> experssion, i.e. it's not limited to raw pointers. I should 
> have named it 'mem_fn_get_pointer.'
> 
> I guess the right thing to do is to document 'get_pointer(px)' as returng 
> the raw pointer contained in px on the smart pointer side, and make
> mem_fn_get_pointer forward to it on the mem_fn side. Comments?

If 'get_pointer' is going to become a free-standing equivalent of 'get'
member function, I would suggest to call it 'c_ptr' (never liked 'get' :),
e.g.

void foo(std::auto_ptr<something> thing) // or boost::shared_ptr, et al.
{
    if (c_ptr(thing)) // #1
    {
        // ...
        boost::scoped_array<char> a(new char[n]);
        std::memcpy(c_ptr(a), src, n); // #2, etc.
    }
}

That's what we have here at work.

Aleksey