Re: [Boost-users] Why don't smart pointers have the same semantics as plain pointers?

From: Thorsten Ottosen (tottosen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-17 09:38:17

Pierre THIERRY wrote:
> Le Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:16:14 -0500, me22 a écrit :

>>There's always "shared_ptr<Foo> ptr_foo( new Foo );", which is less
>>typing than either anyways.
> 
> 
> But only possible at the construction. In any other place, you have to
> use reset. And the problem is, I have to modify deeply my code to use
> shared_ptr, and change it back if I stop using them.
> 
> With the operator=(T*), it would need no more than a modified typedef
> for the entire code to switch to or from shared_ptr (or from any other
> type of pointer that supports this operator).

Just replacing shared_ptr<T> with T* seems to require much more than 
just a typedef. If the goal is to replace boost::shared_ptr<T> with
foo::shared_ptr<T>, you might look into traits.

-Thorsten