20 General utilities library [utilities]

20.8 Smart pointers [smartptr]

20.8.2 Shared-ownership pointers [util.smartptr]

20.8.2.5 Class template enable_shared_from_this [util.smartptr.enab]

A class T can inherit from enable_shared_from_this<T> to inherit the shared_from_this member functions that obtain a shared_ptr instance pointing to *this.

Example:

struct X: public enable_shared_from_this<X> {
};

int main() {
  shared_ptr<X> p(new X);
  shared_ptr<X> q = p->shared_from_this();
  assert(p == q);
  assert(!(p < q ) && !(q < p)); // p and q share ownership
}

 — end example ]

namespace std {
  template<class T> class enable_shared_from_this {
  protected:
    constexpr enable_shared_from_this() noexcept;
    enable_shared_from_this(enable_shared_from_this const&) noexcept;
    enable_shared_from_this& operator=(enable_shared_from_this const&) noexcept;
    ~enable_shared_from_this();
  public:
    shared_ptr<T> shared_from_this();
    shared_ptr<T const> shared_from_this() const;
  };
} // namespace std

The template parameter T of enable_shared_from_this may be an incomplete type.

constexpr enable_shared_from_this() noexcept; enable_shared_from_this(const enable_shared_from_this<T>&) noexcept;

Effects: Constructs an enable_shared_from_this<T> object.

enable_shared_from_this<T>& operator=(const enable_shared_from_this<T>&) noexcept;

Returns: *this.

~enable_shared_from_this();

Effects: Destroys *this.

shared_ptr<T> shared_from_this(); shared_ptr<T const> shared_from_this() const;

Requires: enable_shared_from_this<T> shall be an accessible base class of T. *this shall be a subobject of an object t of type T. There shall be at least one shared_ptr instance p that owns &t.

Returns: A shared_ptr<T> object r that shares ownership with p.

Postconditions: r.get() == this.

Note: A possible implementation is shown below:

template<class T> class enable_shared_from_this {
private:
  weak_ptr<T> __weak_this;
protected:
  constexpr enable_shared_from_this() : __weak_this() { }
  enable_shared_from_this(enable_shared_from_this const &) { }
  enable_shared_from_this& operator=(enable_shared_from_this const &) { return *this; }
  ~enable_shared_from_this() { }
public:
  shared_ptr<T> shared_from_this() { return shared_ptr<T>(__weak_this); }
  shared_ptr<T const> shared_from_this() const { return shared_ptr<T const>(__weak_this); }
};

The shared_ptr constructors that create unique pointers can detect the presence of an enable_shared_from_this base and assign the newly created shared_ptr to its __weak_this member.  — end note ]