What are the advantages of boost::noncopyable

Question

To prevent copying a class, you can very easily declare a private copy constructor / assignment operators. But you can also inherit boost::noncopyable.

Answer 1

A small disadvantage (GCC specific) is that, if you compile your program with g++ -Weffc++ and you have classes containing pointers, e.g.

class C : boost::noncopyable
{
public:
  C() : p(nullptr) {}

private:
  int *p;
};

GCC doesn't understand what's happening:

warning: 'class C' has pointer data members [-Weffc++]
warning: but does not override 'C(const S&)' [-Weffc++]
warning: or 'operator=(const C&)' [-Weffc++]

While it won't complain with:

#define DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(Class) \
  Class(const Class &) = delete;     \
  Class &operator=(const Class &) = delete

class C
{
public:
  C() : p(nullptr) {}
  DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(C);

private:
  int *p;
};

PS I know GCC's -Weffc++ has several issues. The code that checks for "problems" is pretty simplicistic, anyway... sometimes it helps.