6 This example shows the use of the various smart pointer classes
9 There are two programs in this example. Each program implements a
10 similar set of classes, but with a different style of using smart
13 The Widget example is written such that objects may only pass raw
14 pointers between them, and use smart pointers to manage the object
15 lifetimes. An advantage of this style is the fine-grained control
16 over the type of smart pointer used in each situation. For example,
17 if you know that in a particular section of code there is no
18 concurrency involved, you can strategise ACE_Refcounted_Auto_Ptr on
19 ACE_Null_Mutex to eliminate locking overhead. Disadvantages of this
20 style include greater programming complexity and certain ownership
21 use cases not being easily supported.
23 The Gadget example is written such that objects are always passed
24 around using one of the ACE_Strong_Bound_Ptr/ACE_Weak_Bound_Ptr
25 pair of smart pointers. The advantage of this style is the
26 reduction in complexity of object lifetime management (almost as
27 "good" as Java ;-) The disadvantage is that you pay a cost for the
28 reference counting and locking overhead even in situations where it
29 may not be strictly necessary.