Question

For training purposes, I am trying to write my own smartpointer, imitating std::shared_ptr. I have a static std::map<void *, int> ref_track that keeps track whether there are still shared pointer referencing a certain block in memory.

My concept is this:

template <typename PType>
class shared_ptr
{
    public:
        shared_ptr()
        : value_(nullptr), ptr_(nullptr)
        {}

        template <typename T>
        explicit shared_ptr(T * ptr)
        : shared_ptr()
        {
            reset(ptr);
        }

        template <typename T>
        shared_ptr(shared_ptr<T> const & other)
        : shared_ptr()
        {       
            reset(other.get());
        }

        ~shared_ptr()
        {
            reset();
        }

        void reset()
        {
            if(value_)
            {
                delete value_; // Segmentation fault here!
                value_ = 0;
                ptr_ = 0;
            }
        }

        template <typename T>
        void reset(T * ptr)
        {   
            reset();
            if(ptr)
            {
                value_ = new shared_ptr_internal::storage_impl<
                    T
                >(ptr);
                ptr_ = ptr;
            }
        }

        PType * get() const
        {
            return ptr_;
        }

        typename shared_ptr_internal::ptr_trait<PType>::type operator *()
        {
            return *ptr_;
        }

    private:
        shared_ptr_internal::storage_base * value_;
        PType * ptr_;
};

When running my test suite, I noticed that

shared_ptr<int> a(new int(42));
a.reset(new int(13));

works fine, but

shared_ptr<int> a(new int(42));
a = shared_ptr<int>(new int(13));

leads to problems: *a is 0 instead of 13, and delete value_ crashes with a segmentation fault in the destructor of a. I have marked the crash in the source code with a comment.

The used internal classes are

namespace shared_ptr_internal
{

    typedef std::map<void *, int> ref_tracker;
    typedef std::map<void *, int>::iterator ref_tracker_iterator;
    typedef std::pair<void *, int> ref_tracker_entry;

    static ref_tracker ref_track;

    struct storage_base
    {
        virtual ~storage_base() {}
    };

    template <typename PType>
    struct storage_impl : storage_base
    {
        storage_impl(PType * ptr)
        : ptr_(ptr)
        {
            ref_tracker_iterator pos = ref_track.find(ptr);
            if(pos == ref_track.end())
            {
                ref_track.insert(
                    ref_tracker_entry(ptr, 1)
                );
            }
            else
            {
                ++pos->second;
            }
        }

        ~storage_impl()
        {
            ref_tracker_iterator pos = ref_track.find(ptr_);
            if(pos->second == 1)
            {
                ref_track.erase(pos);
                delete ptr_;
            }
            else
            {
                --pos->second;
            }
        }

        private:
            PType * ptr_;
    };

    template <typename PType>
    struct ptr_trait
    {
        typedef PType & type;
    };

    template <>
    struct ptr_trait<void>
    {
        typedef void type;
    };
}

Sorry for the bulk of source code, but I really do not know how I could narrow it down further. I would be grateful for any ideas what could be causing the segfault, and moreover why this does not happen when using reset manually.

Update

My (not-working) assignment operator:

template <typename T>
shared_ptr<PType> & operator =(shared_ptr<T> const & other)
{
    if(this != &other)
    {
        value_ = nullptr;
        ptr_ = nullptr;
        reset(other.get());
    }
    return *this;
}

Answer 1

You’re missing an assignment operator.

This means that in the following code:

a = shared_ptr<int>(new int(13));

a temporary shared pointer is created; then the default assignment operator simply copies the pointer to a without releasing the old value or updating the reference count; then the temporary deletes the value, leaving a with a dangling pointer.