Alias RcPtr.WeakType
Weak pointer
RcPtr
is a smart pointer that holds a non-owning ("weak") reference to an object that is managed by RcPtr
.
It must be converted to RcPtr
in order to access the referenced object.
RcPtr
models temporary ownership: when an object needs to be accessed only if it exists, and it may be deleted at any time by someone else,
RcPtr
is used to track the object, and it is converted to RcPtr
to assume temporary ownership.
If the original RcPtr
is destroyed at this time, the object's lifetime is extended until the temporary RcPtr
is destroyed as well.
Another use for RcPtr
is to break reference cycles formed by objects managed by RcPtr
.
If such cycle is orphaned (i,e. there are no outside shared pointers into the cycle), the RcPtr
reference counts cannot reach zero and the memory is leaked.
To prevent this, one of the pointers in the cycle can be made weak.