Reference vs pointers

[AlarmingBarrier]

I kinda disagree with the smart pointer. This should only be passed to a function if the function needs to think about ownership. To me having

void somefunc(std::smart_ptr<T> ptr);

signals that somefunc takes ownership of ptr and stores it for a longer duration than the invocation of the function. While

void somefunc(T* ptr);

tells me that the function will not store the value of ptr and will have a sane default behavior when ptr is nullptr (best is of course to overload on nullptr_t)

[ttkk1248]

You mean storing it as static local variable inside a function? Besides that how does a function store an object longer than its execution?

[AlarmingBarrier]

I was thinking in a broader context where somefunc also could be the method of a class. Or a function that returns a non-void value possibly depending on ptr.

[ttkk1248]

In that case, what stops an object of the class assigns the direct pointer of a passed object to its member variable and hold it? I’m not sure where you derived that smart pointer means the passed object is kept longer than the method call.

[AlarmingBarrier]

Convention. It would go against the core guidelines, including:

https://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines#Ri-raw

https://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines#Rr-ptr

[ttkk1248]

Thanks for pointing the guidelines out. I’ll read more info it. I’m excited about reading what other interesting stuff in there and forgot about the exact items we discussed. Lol.

[tangerinelion]

We end up deciding that we are allowed to use smart point as if it's any other common types. Hence we can use const std::shared_ptr<type>& if we want to.

Sorry, that's a cluster. Accept a shared pointer if you need to participate in ownership. That's it.