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Ownership Types, Views and Type Erasure · 3:39
unique_ptr
std::unique_ptr is the standard library's exclusive owner: one owner, one delete, and ownership that moves but never copies. We follow an order from a factory into a vector and then a member, measure the pointer's size with different deleters on a real Mac, and see why a unique_ptr is the ideal factory return type.
You will learn
- Explain exclusive ownership and why unique_ptr is move-only
- Trace ownership through moves and predict which handle is null
- Use reset() and release() and wrap non-memory handles with a custom deleter
- Predict sizeof(unique_ptr) with stateless-lambda, function-pointer and std::function deleters
- Use unique_ptr<T[]> and return unique_ptr from factories