xmem

An alternative implementation of the smart pointers in the standard header <memory> with some additional features.

Blog post about this library and the motivation behind it.

xmem requires at least C++17.

xmem vs <memory>

• unique_ptr: no known differences
• shared_ptr:
  • xmem allows the control block type to be set as a template argument, thus allowing various features by control-block-level polymorphism.
    • Most notably (and the main motivation behind the lib): tracking of strong or weak refs, which allow dealing with shared_ptr-based leaks
    • Non-atomic refcounts which improve performance as long as you only use the pointers in a single thread (implemented in xmem::local_shared_ptr)
  • In the spirit of the deprecated atomic operations on std::shared_ptr in C++20, xmem offers no atomic ops on shared_ptr. It introduces the class atomic_shared_ptr_storage to take care of this need.
  • The owner (control block) of the pointer is directly accessible as const void* through ptr.owner() and stronly typed as const control_block_type* through ptr.t_owner()
  • There is no constructor through weak ptr, and no shared_ptr operation throws an exception (except ones by proxy, on allocation or if constructing the object in make_shared throws)
  • A helper function: make_shared_ptr to make a shared_ptr from an existing object
  • A helper function: make_aliased to make a shared_ptr by aliasing another, but safely returning nullptr if the source is null.
• weak_ptr:
  • Like shared_ptr it has the control block as a template argument and offers control block access through owner and t_owner
  • The pointer has a boolean interface which means no associated control block and says nothing about whether the pointer has expired or not.
  • An aliasing constructor like the one in shared_ptr is provided
• Besides enable_shared_from_this a non-template alternative is introduced enable_shared_from which (in the author's opinion) has a better interface. This is inspired from Boost.SmartPtr.
• Helper functions
  • same_owner - check whether two shared/weak pointers have the same owner
  • no_owner - check if a weak/shared pointer has no owner
• Functions from C++20: make_shared_for_overwrite, make_unique_for_overwrite

The external functionalities: make_aliased, make_ptr, enable_shared_from, atomic_shared_ptr_storage, same_owner, no_owner, are also available for the applicable std:: pointers through the header xmem/std_helpers.hpp in namespace xstd.

License

This software is distributed under the MIT Software License.

See accompanying file LICENSE or copy here.

Copyright © 2022-2026 Borislav Stanimirov