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Asked: 2026-05-12T14:50:49+00:00

All the documentation I can find on the STL containers (both queue and list)

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All the documentation I can find on the STL containers (both queue and list) say that for any of the remove functions the removed object’s destructor is called. This means that I can’t use std::queue any time I want a queue that’s simply a list of objects needing some operation performed on them.

I want to be able to add objects to the queue when they are waiting in line for me to do something to them. Then I want to remove them from it when I’ve finished with them, without destroying the object in question. This doesn’t appear to be possible from the documentation I’ve read. Am I misreading the documentation? Is there another type of queue in the STL other than the basic “queue” that doesn’t call the removed object’s destructor on a call to pop_front?

Edit to clarify: In my case I’m using a list of pointers. Something like this:

   dbObject *someObject;
   queue<dbObject *> inputQueue;
   inputQueue.push_back(someObject);

   ...

   dbObject *objectWithInput = inputQueue.front();
   //handle object's input...
   inputQueue.pop_front(); // Remove from queue... destroyed now?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If you put pointers to objects in the queue (and any other STL container), the pointers won’t get deleted when you remove them.

    To elaborate: when you use std::queue and remove an object the destructor of some_obj* is called. But the destructor for plain pointer (or any POD type – int, char, etc) is empty, no-op. The fine line here is that the destructor for some_obj* is very different from the destructor for some_obj.

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