Question

I have a char* p, which points to a \0-terminated string. How do I create a C++ string from it in an exception-safe way?

Here is an unsafe version:

string foo() {   char *p = get_string();    string str( p );   free( p );   return str; } 

An obvious solution would be to try-catch – any easier ways?

Answer 1

You can use shared_ptr from C++11 or Boost:

string foo() {     shared_ptr<char> p(get_string(), &free);     string str(p.get());     return str; } 

This uses a very specific feature of shared_ptr not available in auto_ptr or anything else, namely the ability to specify a custom deleter; in this case, I’m using free as the deleter.