shared_ptr in boost library

[foozhan]

hi
can some one tell me how shared_ptr works? i read this page but i can not understand... it doesnt have example in this page
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/memory/shared_ptr/

[foozhan]

is there anyone here? plzz help :(

[Cubbi]

Perhaps cppreference's explanation would work better? http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/memory/shared_ptr#Implementation_notes

(note that neither page describes shared_ptr in the boost library, both cplusplus.com and cppreference.com talk about C++. For boost, see http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/smart_ptr/shared_ptr.htm )

[coder777]

shared_ptr has two members

1. the pointer to the object
2. the pointer to a reference counter


when the shared_ptr gets an non null object or another shared_ptr is assigned the reference count is increase by one
when the shared_ptr looses the object or is destroyed the reference count is decreased by one

if the reference count is 0 (no one uses the pointer to the object anymore) the object (if not null) is deleted.

this way you don't need to worry about the lifetime of the associated object