Question

I have an iterator which contains the following functions:

    ...
    T &operator*() { return *_i; }
    std::shared_ptr<T> operator->() { return _i; }

private:
    std::shared_ptr<T> _i;
    ...

How do I get a shared pointer to the internally stored _i?

std::shared_ptr<Type> item = ???

Should I do:

MyInterfaceIterator<Type> i;
std::shared_ptr<Type> item = i.operator->();

Or should I rewrite operator*()?

Answer 1

If you can edit the code you can add a simple get function that return the internal shared_ptr!! It’s better than calling operator-> directly, isn’t it??