std::unique_ptr, deleters and the Win32 API

Question

In VC2012, I want to create a mutex in a constructor using a unique pointer and a deleter, so that I don\'t need to create a destructor just to call CloseHandle.

I w

Answer 1

Others have pointed out how the whole HANDLE/HANDLE* issue works. Here's a much cleverer way to deal with it, using interesting features of std::unique_pointer.

struct WndHandleDeleter
{
  typedef HANDLE pointer;

  void operator()(HANDLE h) {::CloseHandle(h);}
};

typedef std::unique_ptr unique_handle;

This allows unique_handle::get to return HANDLE instead of HANDLE*, without any fancy std::remove_pointer or other such things.

This works because HANDLE is a pointer and therefore satisfies NullablePointer.