Smart Pointers (8b)

Question 1

What is a smart pointer?

Answer 1

Class type that look and act like a pointer
Must overload -> and *
Usually a template class

Question 2

Why are smart pointers useful?

Answer 2

Define ctor and dtor of pointer (set = nullptr)
Can make them automatically delete object pointing to
Can change dereferencing

Question 3

What is a unique_ptr?

Answer 3

Smart pointer that cleans up after itself

Only one unique_ptr can manage an object

Question 4

What are the uses of a unique_ptr?

Answer 4

Guarantees deletion
Moving ownership of uniquely-owned objects with dynamic lifetimes into and from methods
Use release(), reset(), swap() to change ownership

Question 5

What is a shared_ptr?

Answer 5

Smart pointer that provides reference counting

Tracks how many objs point to a particular resource and auto deletes resource when no pointers point to it