Are data structures the right place for shared_ptr?

Question

I am implementing a binary tree in C ++. Traditionally, I had a pointer to the left and a pointer to the right, but manual memory management usually ends with tears. Which leads me to my question ...

Are data structures the right place to use shared_ptr?

Answer 1

I think it depends on where you use them. I assume that what you are going to do is something like this:

template <class T>
class BinaryTreeNode 
{
    //public interface ignored for this example
    private:
        shared_ptr<BinaryTreeNode<T> > left;
        shared_ptr<BinaryTreeNode<T> > right;
        T data;
}

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template <class T>
class BinaryTreeNode 
{
    //public interface ignored for this example
    private:
        auto_ptr<BinaryTreeNode<T> > left;
        auto_ptr<BinaryTreeNode<T> > right;
        T data;
}

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Answer 2

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Answer 3

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Answer 4

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Answer 5

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Answer 6

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Answer 7

Do you even need pointers? It seems you could use boost::optional<BinaryTreeNode<T> > left, right.