Hasty Briefsbeta

Super Thin RAII Wrappers for C Types

12 days ago
  • #C Interop
  • #RAII
  • #C++
  • The article discusses creating RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization) wrappers for C types in C++ to enable scope-based destruction.
  • Two approaches are presented: using STL smart pointers with custom deleters and creating a custom thin wrapper for better performance.
  • The STL solution leverages `shared_ptr` with custom deleters to manage C type resources, providing reference counting and copy prevention.
  • A custom wrapper is introduced for scenarios where STL overhead is unacceptable, featuring implicit conversion and operator overloading for direct access to the underlying C type.
  • The article acknowledges limitations in template type deduction for constructors and suggests potential future exploration into optimization and inlining.
  • Example code demonstrates wrapping a C struct with constructor and destructor functions, showcasing both STL and custom wrapper implementations.