dolfin team mailing list archive

["Garth N. Wells" <gnw20@xxxxxxxxx>]

Martin Sandve Alnæs wrote:
> If we can use references somewhere we use pointers, we should change
> that. All factory functions will of course return pointers, and they
> clearly give away ownership to the caller. Where else do we need to
> use pointers? 

DiscreteFunction is an example where we use a number of pointers because 
a DiscreteFunction may or may not own the data. Without having a bunch 
of constructors, I don't know how to tell DiscreteFunction what it does 
and doesn't own.

Pointers are also used quite a bit in DofMap and DofMapSet. These of 
course will be overhauled in the near future.

A common reason to use pointers other than when passing
> ownership is to allow a null pointer. Any other reasons?
>
> Using a host of different smart pointers will probably just be
> confusing to most users. I think we should stick with the
> std::tr1::shared_ptr if we need one, unless there are very good
> reasons otherwise. 

If we use one, I expect it to be shard_ptr. It might be unfamiliar to a 
user, but it will protect them against themselves because they won't 
need to explicitly free the memory.

Garth

(Also, the newest version of swig is supposed to
> support shared_ptr in the python interface, but I don't know how
> exactly).