Where is shared_ptr?

Question

I am so frustrated right now after several hours trying to find where shared_ptr is located. None of the examples I see show complete code to include the headers for shared_ptr (and working). Simply stating std, tr1 and <memory> is not helping at all! I have downloaded boosts and all but still it doesn't show up! Can someone help me by telling exactly where to find it?

Thanks for letting me vent my frustrations!

EDIT: I see my title has been changed. Sorry about that. So... it was also because it was not clear to me that shared_ptr is "C++ version dependant" --> that's why I did not state my environment --> therefore probably why it was so difficult for me to find it.

I am working on MSVS2008.

EDIT 2: I don't know why, but I was including [memory] and [boost/tr1/memory.hpp] and [boost/tr1/tr1/memory] while looking everywhere for the shared_ptr.. of course, i couldn't.

Thanks for all the responses.

Answer 1

There are at least three places where you may find shared_ptr:

1. If your C++ implementation supports C++11 (or at least the C++11 shared_ptr), then std::shared_ptr will be defined in <memory>.

2. If your C++ implementation supports the C++ TR1 library extensions, then std::tr1::shared_ptr will likely be in <memory> (Microsoft Visual C++) or <tr1/memory> (g++'s libstdc++). Boost also provides a TR1 implementation that you can use.

3. Otherwise, you can obtain the Boost libraries and use boost::shared_ptr, which can be found in <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>.

Answer 2

Boost Getting Started

If you want to use it from Boost TR1 instead

shared_ptr Example

Answer 3

for VS2008 with feature pack update, shared_ptr can be found under namespace std::tr1.

std::tr1::shared_ptr<int> MyIntSmartPtr = new int;

of

if you had boost installation path (for example @ C:\Program Files\Boost\boost_1_40_0) added to your IDE settings:

#include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>

Answer 4

If your'e looking bor boost's shared_ptr, you could have easily found the answer by googling shared_ptr, following the links to the docs, and pulling up a complete working example such as this.

In any case, here is a minimalistic complete working example for you which I just hacked up:

#include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>

struct MyGizmo
{
    int n_;
};

int main()
{
    boost::shared_ptr<MyGizmo> p(new MyGizmo);
    return 0;
}

In order for the #include to find the header, the libraries obviously need to be in the search path. In MSVC, you set this in Project Settings>Configuration Properties>C/C++>Additional Include Directories. In my case, this is set to C:\Program Files (x86)\boost\boost_1_42