Using std::shared_ptr to point to anything

Question

I\'m using a std::shared_ptr in my application to make a smart pointer which can point to many different types of data structures like structs, vect

Answer 1

You can.

#include 
#include 
#include 

using namespace std;

class wild_ptr {
    shared_ptr v;
public:
    template 
    void set(T v) {
        this->v = make_shared(v);
    }

    template 
    T & ref() {
        return (*(T*)v.get());
    }
};

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    shared_ptr a;
    a = make_shared(3);
    cout << (*(int*)a.get()) << '\n';
    cout << *static_pointer_cast(a) << '\n'; // same as above

    wild_ptr b;
    cout << sizeof(b) << '\n';
    b.set(3);
    cout << b.ref() << '\n';
    b.ref() = 4;
    cout << b.ref() << '\n';

    b.set("foo");
    cout << b.ref() << '\n';

    b.set(string("bar"));
    cout << b.ref() << '\n';
    return 0;
}

Output:

3
3
8
3
4
foo
bar