Re: [boost] Is there any interest in non-owning pointer-like types?

Subject: Re: [boost] Is there any interest in non-owning pointer-like types?
From: Richard Hodges (hodges.r_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-02-01 17:30:09

There is already an observer_ptr proposed for c++17.

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/experimental/observer_ptr

On 1 February 2017 at 17:22, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 1/31/2017 11:47 PM, Joseph Thomson wrote:
>
>> For some time, I have been developing a pair of non-owning pointer-like
>> types that I am currently calling `observer_ptr` and `observer`. I had
>> planned to propose their addition to the C++ standard library, but I have
>> been informed by the author of the original `observer_ptr` proposal
>> <http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2014/n4282.pdf> that
>> the ISO C++ committee has rejected his proposal and made clear that it
>> feels there is no place in the standard library for such types, believing
>> that this role is filled to a satisfactory degree by regular pointers. I
>> wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment, so I am bringing my proposal
>> here instead.
>>
>> The `observer_ptr<T>` class template is a pointer-like type that does not
>> do any resource management, and is intended to be used in place of `T*`
>> wherever `T*` is used as a non-owning reference to an object of type `T`.
>>
>
> When referring to 'T*' I think you should always use the terminology
> 'pointer' rather than 'reference'. By mixing the two you are confusing
> terminology, which I believe should always be distinct because a pointer
> and a reference are syntactically two different things in C++.
>
> snipped...
>
>
>
>
>
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