Manually incrementing and decrementing a boost::shared_ptr?

Question

Is there a way to manually increment and decrement the count of a shared_ptr in C++?

The problem that I am trying to solve is as follows. I am writing a library in C

Answer 1

fastest possible concurrent lockless manager (if you know what you are doing).

template< class T >
class shared_pool
{
public:

    typedef T value_type;
    typedef shared_ptr< value_type > value_ptr;
    typedef value_ptr* lock_handle;

shared_pool( size_t maxSize ):
    _poolStore( maxSize )
{}

// returns nullptr if there is no place in vector, which cannot be resized without locking due to concurrency
lock_handle try_acquire( const value_ptr& lockPtr ) {
    static value_ptr nullPtr( nullptr );
    for( auto& poolItem: _poolStore ) {
        if( std::atomic_compare_exchange_strong( &poolItem, &nullPtr, lockPtr ) ) {             
            return &poolItem;
        }
    }
    return nullptr;
}


lock_handle acquire( const value_ptr& lockPtr ) {
    lock_handle outID;
    while( ( outID = try_acquire( lockPtr ) ) == nullptr ) {
        mt::sheduler::yield_passive(); // ::SleepEx( 1, false );
    }
    return outID;
}

value_ptr release( const lock_handle& lockID ) {
    value_ptr lockPtr( nullptr );
    std::swap( *lockID, lockPtr);
    return lockPtr;
}

protected:

    vector< value_ptr > _poolStore;

};

std::map is not so fast, requires additional search, extra memory, spin-locking. But it grants extra safety with handles approach.

BTW, hack with manual release/acquire seems to be a much better approach (in terms of speed and memory usage). C++ std better add such a functionality in their classes, just to keep C++ razor-shaped.