Question

I love this book, sadly it does not cover smart pointers as they were not part of the standard back then. So when reading the book can I fairly substitute every mentioned pointer by a smart pointer, respectively reference?

Answer 1

Well, there are different kinds of smart pointers. For example:

You could create a scoped_ptr class, which would be useful when you’re allocating for a task within a block of code, and you want the resource to be freed automatically when it runs of of scope.

Something like:

template <typename T>
class scoped_ptr
{
 public:
    scoped_ptr(T* p = 0) : mPtr(p) {}
    ~scoped_ptr() { delete mPtr; }
 //...
};

Additionally you could create a shared_ptr who acts the same but keeps a ref count. Once the ref count reach 0 you deallocate.

shared_ptr would be useful for pointers stored in STL containers and the like.

So yes, you could use smart pointers for most of the purposes of your program.
But think judiciously about what kind of smart pointer you need and why.

Do not simply “find and replace” all the pointers you come across.