Example to use shared_ptr?

Question

Hi I asked a question today about How to insert different types of objects in the same vector array and my code in that question was

 gate* G[1000];
G[0] = new ANDgate() ;
G[1] = new ORgate;
//gate is a class inherited by ANDgate and ORgate classes
class gate
{
 .....
 ......
 virtual void Run()
   {   //A virtual function
   }
};
class ANDgate :public gate 
  {.....
   .......
   void Run()
   {
    //AND version of Run
   }  

};
 class ORgate :public gate 
  {.....
   .......
   void Run()
   {
    //OR version of Run
   }  

};      
//Running the simulator using overloading concept
 for(...;...;..)
 {
  G[i]->Run() ;  //will run perfectly the right Run for the right Gate type
 } 

and I wanted to use vectors so someone wrote that I should do that :

std::vector<gate*> G;
G.push_back(new ANDgate); 
G.push_back(new ORgate);
for(unsigned i=0;i<G.size();++i)
{
  G[i]->Run();
}

but then he and many others suggested that I would better use Boost pointer containers
or shared_ptr. I have spent the last 3 hours reading about this topic, but the documentation seems pretty advanced to me . ****Can anyone give me a small code example of shared_ptr usage and why they suggested using shared_ptr. Also are there other types like ptr_vector, ptr_list and ptr_deque** **

Edit1: I have read a code example too that included:

typedef boost::shared_ptr<Foo> FooPtr;
.......
int main()
{
  std::vector<FooPtr>         foo_vector;
........
FooPtr foo_ptr( new Foo( 2 ) );
  foo_vector.push_back( foo_ptr );
...........
}

And I don't understand the syntax!

Answer 1

Using a vector of shared_ptr removes the possibility of leaking memory because you forgot to walk the vector and call delete on each element. Let's walk through a slightly modified version of the example line-by-line.

typedef boost::shared_ptr<gate> gate_ptr;

Create an alias for the shared pointer type. This avoids the ugliness in the C++ language that results from typing std::vector<boost::shared_ptr<gate> > and forgetting the space between the closing greater-than signs.

    std::vector<gate_ptr> vec;

Creates an empty vector of boost::shared_ptr<gate> objects.

    gate_ptr ptr(new ANDgate);

Allocate a new ANDgate instance and store it into a shared_ptr. The reason for doing this separately is to prevent a problem that can occur if an operation throws. This isn't possible in this example. The Boost shared_ptr "Best Practices" explain why it is a best practice to allocate into a free-standing object instead of a temporary.

    vec.push_back(ptr);

This creates a new shared pointer in the vector and copies ptr into it. The reference counting in the guts of shared_ptr ensures that the allocated object inside of ptr is safely transferred into the vector.

What is not explained is that the destructor for shared_ptr<gate> ensures that the allocated memory is deleted. This is where the memory leak is avoided. The destructor for std::vector<T> ensures that the destructor for T is called for every element stored in the vector. However, the destructor for a pointer (e.g., gate*) does not delete the memory that you had allocated. That is what you are trying to avoid by using shared_ptr or ptr_vector.