[boost] make_shared_array

Subject: [boost] make_shared_array
From: Peter Dimov (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-11-01 08:07:35

Hello,

Glen Fernandes has kindly contributed an implementation of make_shared_array 
and allocate_shared_array. These are like make_shared and allocate_shared, 
except that they take a size_t argument N and allocate an array of N 
elements.

Glen has made the functions return a shared_ptr, mostly because they are 
non-intrusive and it's not possible to return a shared_array without changes 
to shared_ptr and shared_array.

But we can make such changes when we put the functions in Boost. So the 
question is, should we?

It makes almost no sense to have a function called make_shared_array that 
does not, in fact, make a shared_array. On the other hand, Glen posits that 
some people may prefer to use shared_ptr instead of shared_array in their 
code for various reasons, one of which is that shared_array's default 
constructor can throw.

Opinions?