Slides

Section : Smart Pointers

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Smart Pointers

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Manually releasing memory yourself through the delete operator for raw
pointers is a pain in the neck. Smart pointers are a solution offered by modern
C++ to release the memory automatically when the pointer managing the
memory goes out of scope

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 new

delete

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 Smart Pointers

new

delete

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 <memory>

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 • std::unique_ptr
• std::shared_ptr
• std::weak_ptr

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Unique pointers

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 • At any given moment there can only be
one pointer managing the memory
• Memory is automatically released when the
pointer goes out of scope

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 <memory>

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Stack variables

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 Raw pointers

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 Unique pointers

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 Std::make_unique

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 Can’t copy unique pointers

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 Moving ownership

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 Resetting

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Unique pointers as function
parameters & return values

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Passing by value

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Passing by value

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Passing by reference

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Returning by value

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Unique pointers and arrays

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Array managed by unique_ptr

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 make_unique

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 std::unique_ptr : best practices

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 Unique_ptr member variables

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Using std::make_unique eliminates the last two problems. You’re not directly
dealing with the raw pointer, so you can’t easily misuse it. In modern C++, strive
to use smart pointers as much as possible and use new and delete directly only
if really necessary.

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared Pointers

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 ptr_1

ptr_2

data

ptr_3

ptr_4

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared pointers with fundamental types

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared pointers with fundamental types

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared pointers with fundamental types

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 make_shared

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Creating shared pointers from
unique pointers

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 shared_ptr to unique_ptr

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 Returning smart pointers

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 Having your functions return unique_ptr is the preferred way to do things, as you can
turn that pointer into a shared_ptr at any time, but you can’t turn a shared_ptr into a
unique_ptr. unique_ptr are much more flexible to work with in this case

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 Shared Pointers with arrays

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 • make_shared syntax isn't supported yet for raw arrays. Some compilers do offer
some partial support for it, but I would not recommend using that in your code so I
won't show that here. If you find yourself needing to use shared_ptr with arrays, then
new is still your friend. But once the array is created, the shared_ptr is going to
manage the memory , you don't need to explicitly call delete.

• You won’t need to use raw arrays with smart pointers that often though, there are
better and more practical collection types we will learn about later in the course
that almost remove the need for raw arrays.

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared Pointers as function
parameters and return value

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 shared_ptr passed by value

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 shared_ptr passed by non const ref

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 shared_ptr passed by const ref

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 Returning by value

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 Returning by Reference

NOT RECOMMENDED!

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 Weak pointers

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 Non owning pointers that don’t implement the -> or * operator. You can’t
use them directly to read or modify data

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 Using weak_ptr

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 Cyclic dependency problem

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 Cyclic dependency problem

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 person_a person_b

Person(“Alison”) Person(“Beth”)

Friend

Friend

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Solving cyclic dependency

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Smart Pointers

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Manually releasing memory yourself through the delete operator for raw
pointers is a pain in the neck. Smart pointers are a solution offered by modern
C++ to release the memory automatically when the pointer managing the
memory goes out of scope

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 • std::unique_ptr
• std::shared_ptr
• std::weak_ptr

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Unique pointers

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Std::make_unique

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Unique pointers as function
parameters & return values

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Array managed by unique_ptr

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 ptr_1

ptr_2

data

ptr_3

ptr_4

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The C++ 20 Masterclass : From Fundamentals to Advanced © Daniel Gakwaya
 Shared pointers with fundamental types

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 make_shared

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 Shared ptr from unique ptr

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 Solving cyclic dependency with weak pointers

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