C++Now 2019

C++ offers two-ish smart pointer types, std::unique_ptr＜＞ and std::shared_ptr＜＞, with their own advantages and disadvantages. But what if these didn't exist, and your company wanted to create smart pointers to capture ownership semantics? Pure Storage had to create smart pointers for ourselves in 2009, and we rarely use the C++ smart pointers. I will discuss the semantics of our smart pointers: owned＜＞ and delete_ptr＜＞, the conventions we have regarding them, and how they differ from C++'s offerings. owned＜＞ has some advantages over unique and shared pointer, including the fact that changing from single ownership to multiple ownership doesn't change the name of the type, unlike unique -＞ shared.

We have additional derivations from the basic owned＜＞ type that express ownership but also separate the view of the data from the ownership; this also has similarities to how the C++ smart pointers allow for a Deleter that is separate from the specified pointer type.