I have a resource_manager
class which maintains a std::vector<boost::shared_ptr<resource> >
internally. resource_manager
is a friend class of resource
. I want resource
s to only be created/deleted by resource_manager
, so I made its constructors private (which works ok).
However, if I make the destructor private, the code doesn't compile because the destructor is called by boost::shared_ptr
, which is not a friend of resource
. I am thinking of enforcing the "do not delete by clients" rule by only returning only const resource*
from the resource_manager
, but somehow I am not satisfied with the security this method provides (what if a client somehow happens across a pointer to non-const?)
Apart from the obvious solution of not using shared_ptr
, do you have any workaround / better solution to my problem?