C++ - passing references to std::shared_ptr or boost::shared_ptr

Question

If I have a function that needs to work with a shared_ptr, wouldn\'t it be more efficient to pass it a reference to it (so to avoid copying the shared_ptr

Answer 1

In addition to what litb said, I'd like to point out that it's probably to pass by const reference in the second example, that way you are sure you don't accidentally modify it.