Re: [boost] Re: Upcoming changes to shared_ptr

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-17 17:04:13

From: "Eric Woodruff" <Eric.Woodruff_at_[hidden]>
>
> "David Abrahams" <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
> news:uvg2w6j80.fsf_at_boost-consulting.com...
> > "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> writes:
> >
> > > * shared_*_cast will be renamed to sp_*_cast.
> >
> > Why? Without rationale, this seems like a gratuitous change,
> > especailly since "sp" doesn't mean much to me.
> >
>
> Agreed. "sp" is so wonderfully expressive. Actually, I was going to voice
a
> complaint of that, but the ideal would overload dynamic_cast, but since it
> is a language keyword, that can't happen. So I can kind of see sp_ as a
> work-around for that.

True, but consider also that dynamic_cast has a different interface:

template<class Target, class Source> Target dynamic_cast(Source);

so even if we could overload it, the syntax would have been

shared_ptr<Y> py;
shared_ptr<X> px = dynamic_cast< shared_ptr<X> >(py);

> Alternatively, it could be named boost_dynamic_cast
> and put in the global namespace, where it can be overloaded as needed by
> boost.

This doesn't look too good if you consider the possible boost->std
transition. :-)