Benefits of Using Smart Pointers and References
There are several benefits of using smart pointers and references in C++. Let’s look at a few in this chapter, before we segue into the more practical side of this course.
Smart pointer benefits
Smart pointers enable developers to write more expressive, cleaner, and maintainable code. This significantly reduces the potential for technical debt or human errors.
By offering automatic deallocation, smart pointers not only decrease the chances of invalid memory access and memory leaks, but also enable developers to utilize their time more productively.
Smart pointers also enhance exception safety. When an exception is thrown, they ensure that resources are automatically cleaned up without the need for manual intervention.
main.cpp
In the above code, we encounter an exception while processing a resource that was allocated using a shared pointer. Since a shared pointer is exception-safe, it automatically deallocates the resource, despite the exception. Read the code comments for more clarity.
Remember
Smart pointers can optimize performance by offering a more efficient mode of memory allocation and deallocation.
References benefits
References can also improve the readability and expressiveness of your code. When used with clear naming conventions, they make your code self-documenting. Consider the following function:
Example.h
Just by looking at the function definition, it’s immediately evident that the variable “total” will be modified and used to communicate the total price to the caller.
- References are also relatively safer to use than pointers, because they can’t be set to null at initialization. When used judiciously, references can help developers write prevent runtime errors and crashes.
- References allow you to modify the values of the original variable, which leads to more compact and efficient code. For example, when iterating over the elements of a collection, you can use a reference to directly update elements instead of working with indices.
In the above code, we use references to iterate over a vector, instead of indices.
Everything was clear?
Course Content
C++ Smart Pointers
C++ Smart Pointers
Benefits of Using Smart Pointers and References
There are several benefits of using smart pointers and references in C++. Let’s look at a few in this chapter, before we segue into the more practical side of this course.
Smart pointer benefits
Smart pointers enable developers to write more expressive, cleaner, and maintainable code. This significantly reduces the potential for technical debt or human errors.
By offering automatic deallocation, smart pointers not only decrease the chances of invalid memory access and memory leaks, but also enable developers to utilize their time more productively.
Smart pointers also enhance exception safety. When an exception is thrown, they ensure that resources are automatically cleaned up without the need for manual intervention.
main.cpp
In the above code, we encounter an exception while processing a resource that was allocated using a shared pointer. Since a shared pointer is exception-safe, it automatically deallocates the resource, despite the exception. Read the code comments for more clarity.
Remember
Smart pointers can optimize performance by offering a more efficient mode of memory allocation and deallocation.
References benefits
References can also improve the readability and expressiveness of your code. When used with clear naming conventions, they make your code self-documenting. Consider the following function:
Example.h
Just by looking at the function definition, it’s immediately evident that the variable “total” will be modified and used to communicate the total price to the caller.
- References are also relatively safer to use than pointers, because they can’t be set to null at initialization. When used judiciously, references can help developers write prevent runtime errors and crashes.
- References allow you to modify the values of the original variable, which leads to more compact and efficient code. For example, when iterating over the elements of a collection, you can use a reference to directly update elements instead of working with indices.
In the above code, we use references to iterate over a vector, instead of indices.
Everything was clear?
