Tag Archive for: Smart Pointers

Posts

ClassIdioms

Covariant Return Type

February 26, 2023

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The Covariant Return Type of a member function allows an overriding member function to return a narrower…

patterns

The Proxy Pattern

November 13, 2022

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The Proxy Pattern is probably the most influential design pattern for C++. The Proxy provides a placeholder…

patterns

The Bridge Pattern

October 16, 2022

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The Bridge Pattern is a structural pattern. It decouples the interface from the implementation. In C++,…

TimelineCpp20

Barriers and Atomic Smart Pointers in C++20

January 29, 2021

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In my last post, I introduced latches in C++20. A latch enables its threads to wait until a counter becomes…

relay race

C++ Core Guidelines: Passing Smart Pointers

December 23, 2017

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Passing smart pointers is a critical topic that is seldom addressed. This ends with the C++ core guidelines…

gold 513062 640

C++ Core Guidelines: Rules for Smart Pointers

December 15, 2017

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There were a lot of C++ experts who said that smart pointers were the essential feature of C++11. Today,…

sharedPtr

Atomic Smart Pointers

February 20, 2017

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C++20 will have atomic smart pointers. To be exact, we will get a std::atomic_shared_ptr and a std::atomic_weak_ptr.…

weakPtr

std::weak_ptr

December 14, 2016

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std::unique_ptr models the concept of exclusive ownership, std::shared_ptr the concept of shared ownership.…

enabledShared

Specialities of std::shared_ptr

December 12, 2016

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After I draw the big picture of a std::shared_ptr in the last post, I want to present two special aspects…

sharedPtr

std::shared_ptr

December 11, 2016

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std::shared_ptr's share the resource. The shared reference counter counts the number of owners. Copying…

Latest news

A Lock-Free Stack: Atomic Smart PointerFebruary 17, 2025 - 11:47 am
The easiest way to solve this memory leak issue from the last post is to use a std::shared_ptr. Atomic Smart Pointer There are two ways to apply atomic operations on a std::shared_ptr: In C++11, you can use the free atomic functions on std::shared_ptr. With C++20, you can use atomic smart pointers. C++11 Using atomic operations […]
A Lock-Free Stack: A Complete ImplementationFebruary 10, 2025 - 3:01 pm
My last lock-free stack implementation was incomplete. It only supported push operations. Let’s change this. The following paragraph about sequential consistency is optional. You can easily ignore it. Sequential Consistency In my examples, I use the default memory ordering: sequential consistency. The reason is simple. Sequential consistency provides the strongest guarantees of all memory ordering […]
My Next Mentoring Program: “Generic Programming (Templates) with C++” startsFebruary 4, 2025 - 4:51 pm
My next mentoring program, “Embedded Programming with Modern C++,” starts on January 31st. Registration is open. Here are more details. Embedded Programming with Modern C++ The mentoring program consists of 16 stations. You have to invest at least 3 hours per week for each one. This means the program takes four months, and you can […]
A Lock-Free Stack: A Simplified ImplementationFebruary 3, 2025 - 10:37 am
Today, I continue my mini story about lock-free data structures. General Considerations From the outside, the caller’s responsibility (application) is to protect the data. From inside, the data structure is responsible for protecting itself. A data structure that protects itself so a data race cannot appear is called thread-safe. First, what general considerations must you […]
Deferred Reclamation in C++26: Read-Copy Update and Hazard PointersJanuary 27, 2025 - 12:23 pm
Before I dive into lock-free programming, there’s a little bit of theory necessary. A common problem in concurrency is the so-called ABA problem. That means you read a variable twice, which returns the same value each time, A. Therefore, you conclude that nothing changed in between. But you forgot the B. Let me first use […]
std::format ExtensionJanuary 20, 2025 - 11:55 am
Displaying the address of an arbitrary pointer in C++ 20 fails but succeeds with C++26. C++20 Only void, const void, and std::nullptr_t pointer types are valid. If you want to display the address of an arbitrary pointer, you must cast it to (const) void*. // formatPointer20.cpp #include <format> #include <iostream> #include <string> int main() { […]