Editing Smart pointer (section)

== Features ==
In [[C++]], a smart pointer is implemented as a template class that mimics, by means of [[operator overloading]], the behaviors of a traditional [[Raw pointer|(raw) pointer]], (e.g. dereferencing, assignment) while providing additional memory management features.

Smart pointers can facilitate intentional programming by expressing, in the type, how the memory of the referent of the pointer will be managed. For example, if a C++ function returns a pointer, there is no way to know whether the caller should delete the memory of the referent when the caller is finished with the information.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
SomeType* AmbiguousFunction();  // What should be done with the result?
</syntaxhighlight>

Traditionally, naming conventions have been used to resolve the ambiguity,<ref name="Taligent"/> which is an error-prone, labor-intensive approach. [[C++11]] introduced a way to ensure correct memory management in this case by declaring the function to return a <code>unique_ptr</code>,

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
std::unique_ptr<SomeType> ObviousFunction();
</syntaxhighlight>

The declaration of the function return type as a <code>unique_ptr</code> makes explicit the fact that the caller takes ownership of the result, and the C++ runtime ensures that the memory will be reclaimed automatically. Before [[C++11]], unique_ptr can be replaced with [[auto_ptr]], which is now deprecated.