shared_ptr documentation suggestion

From: Brian (bneal_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-09-21 14:22:23

Thank you boost developers for your great work. I've already started 
using some smart_ptr's, regex, and the any type.

I started to look at shared_ptr for my needs (working in a realtime 
embedded systems environment). I started wondering how it protects 
its reference count but was surprised to not see anything about this 
in the documentation. Examining the code I see it uses a platform 
specific mutex type mechanism if it is available. Otherwise the 
reference count is not thread safe. I was also alarmed to see that 
the #error "your reference count is not thread safe" was commented 
out!

Just a suggestion: mention in the documentation whats going on here. 
The operating system I am using (VxWorks) is not supported by 
shared_count right now, and had I not been curious I would have not 
noticed this. Also, even if it was, it can be very expensive for a 
realtime embedded system (e.g. running on a very slow processor) to 
take a mutex, especially if done at a very high rate, which is a 
concern of mine in a few places in my code.

BTW, can I submit a VxWorks version of shared_count? Does boost have 
an interest in expanding beyond Win32/Posix/Linux?

Again, thanks for the great software,

Brian Neal