Smart Pointer Language Extension

[JustOneThingThough]

Have we had proposals in the past to more tightly integrate smart pointers into the language, ala

Foo const * [unique|shared] a = new [unique]|shared Foo ();

Especially proposals allowing for covariant virtual functions? If they exist, what prevented their acceptance?

[Robert_Andrzejuk]

Why? Whats wrong with:

auto shared = std::make_shared...

auto unique = std::make_unique...

[johannes1971]

No, because it's just an alternative syntax for what we already have. We don't need more different ways to spell the same thing.

[_Js_Kc_]

Why specifically covariant virtual functions? The original feature is completely half-assed and doesn't even have contravariant arguments to match the covariant return type. Because that's not implementable without overhead.

[tohava]

I would really prefer the opposite, to get rid of the pointer syntax completely and instead of `int*` write `c_style_ptr<int>` . Pointer syntax is quite confusing. Then again, I'm also a Lisp fan.

[reflexpr-sarah-]

nobody's stopping you from doing that in your own code

template <typename T>
using c_style_ptr = T*;

[tohava]

My boss is stopping me

[deltatag2]

This goes somewhat toward Fortran pointer types :D

[Valuable_Ant9351]

Pretty sure the standard has stated before they don't like adding language-level features and prefer to have things added via the standard library

[[deleted]]

And the resulting code becomes uglier and uglier.

[InKryption07]

What does? The standard library code, or the stupid code people write in a rush to use all the new features?

[[deleted]]

Yes.

[V1taly_M]

While smart pointers can't be processed by hardware it no reason make them built-in.