How do I use a custom deleter with a std::unique_ptr member?
Assuming that create
and destroy
are free functions (which seems to be the case from the OP's code snippet) with the following signatures:
Bar* create();
void destroy(Bar*);
You can write your class Foo
like this
class Foo {
std::unique_ptr<Bar, void(*)(Bar*)> ptr_;
// ...
public:
Foo() : ptr_(create(), destroy) { /* ... */ }
// ...
};
Notice that you don't need to write any lambda or custom deleter here because destroy
is already a deleter.
It's possible to do this cleanly using a lambda in C++11 (tested in G++ 4.8.2).
Given this reusable typedef
:
template<typename T>
using deleted_unique_ptr = std::unique_ptr<T,std::function<void(T*)>>;
You can write:
deleted_unique_ptr<Foo> foo(new Foo(), [](Foo* f) { customdeleter(f); });
For example, with a FILE*
:
deleted_unique_ptr<FILE> file(
fopen("file.txt", "r"),
[](FILE* f) { fclose(f); });
With this you get the benefits of exception-safe cleanup using RAII, without needing try/catch noise.
You just need to create a deleter class:
struct BarDeleter {
void operator()(Bar* b) { destroy(b); }
};
and provide it as the template argument of unique_ptr
. You'll still have to initialize the unique_ptr in your constructors:
class Foo {
public:
Foo() : bar(create()), ... { ... }
private:
std::unique_ptr<Bar, BarDeleter> bar;
...
};
As far as I know, all the popular c++ libraries implement this correctly; since BarDeleter
doesn't actually have any state, it does not need to occupy any space in the unique_ptr
.