Smart pointers provide automated, safe, and efficient memory management to developers. Let’s explore some key use cases where smart pointers excel.

Dynamic resource management

Smart pointers should be the go-to choice when managing dynamically allocated resources on the heap.

Suppose you have to construct and destroy several objects of different types in your application. Without smart pointers, you will have to explicitly call delete every time you call new to avoid memory leaks.

However, if you use smart pointers, they will automatically manage the deallocation for you.

Shared resource ownership

Shared pointers are invaluable in scenarios where multiple parts of your codebase need access to the same resource.

Example

You can create a shared pointer of your database class in the main function, and retain different copies of this pointer in each class that requires access.

Exclusive ownership

By using unique pointers, it’s possible to ensure that only one pointer is pointing to a dynamic resource. This is great in case you want to ensure data integrity and prevent accidental misuse of a sensitive resource.

Custom resource management

Smart pointers can be an excellent choice for managing custom resources, like file handles or network connections. Smart pointers allow you to define custom deleters to properly handle the release of such resources.

Custom deleters are functions used to customize the deallocation of a smart pointer resource.

Example

When the file handle goes out of scope, the smart pointer automatically invokes the custom deleter, ensuring that the file handle is correctly closed.