Re: [boost] Weak pointer to object not managed by a shared_ptr

Subject: Re: [boost] Weak pointer to object not managed by a shared_ptr
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-09-02 13:53:14

Mateusz Loskot wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> One of the smart pointer techniques [1] explains use of weak_ptr
> pointer to object not managed by a shared_ptr.
> 
> [1] http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_40_0/libs/smart_ptr/sp_techniques.html
> 
> I'm wondering what would be practical use case of that?
> Is it a part of any of known idioms or patterns?

I know, it's not a design guideline to follow but I used the technique 
to implement pointers that may be checked for being dangling. I needed 
this to quick fix a problem in a quite complicated code that sometimes 
crashed due to raw dangling pointers.