Why can I not push_back a unique_ptr into a vector?

Question

What is wrong with this program?

#include 
#include 

int main()
{
    std::vector> vec;

    in         


        

Answer 1

std::unique_ptr has no copy constructor. You create an instance and then ask the std::vector to copy that instance during initialisation.

error: deleted function 'std::unique_ptr<_Tp, _Tp_Deleter>::uniqu
e_ptr(const std::unique_ptr<_Tp, _Tp_Deleter>&) [with _Tp = int, _Tp_D
eleter = std::default_delete, std::unique_ptr<_Tp, _Tp_Deleter> =
 std::unique_ptr]'

The class satisfies the requirements of MoveConstructible and MoveAssignable, but not the requirements of either CopyConstructible or CopyAssignable.

The following works with the new emplace calls.

std::vector< std::unique_ptr< int > > vec;
vec.emplace_back( new int( 1984 ) );

See using unique_ptr with standard library containers for further reading.