This talk is about the most error prone part of C++ - The memory management part.

1. C++ Memory Management Anil Bapat

25. Smart pointer class template <class T> class SmartPointer { public: SmartPointer(T* pointee = NULL) : _pointee(pointee); SmartPointer(const SmartPointer& rhs); SmartPointer& operator=(const SmartPointer& rhs); ~SmartPointer(); T* operator->() const; T& operator*() const; bool operator!() const; template <class Destination> operator SmartPointer<Destination>() { return SmartPointer<Destination>(_pointee);}; private: T* _pointee; };

26. Smart pointer usage Base* pBase = new Base; Base* pDerived = new Derived; extern func(SmartPointer<Base> spBase); // Function that takes // base smart pointer as argument SmartPointer<Derived> sp(pDerived); sp->mData = 0; cout << (*sp).mData; if (!sp) cout << “pClass pointer value is NULL”; func(sp) // Can pass smart pointer of derived class type to a // function that accepts smart pointer of base class type