A smart pointer is an abstract data type that stimulates a pointer with additional funationality, such as auto memory deallocation, reference counting, etc. In practise it could be a wrapper around of a regular pointer and forwards all meaningfull operations to the pointer

The simplest smart pointer is autr_ptr which are defined in header file <memory>

 

template 
     
       auto_ptr {public:    explicit auto_ptr(T* p): auto_ptr(p){}     ~auto_prt() {delete ptr;}    T& operator*(){
   return *ptr;}    T* operator->(){
   return &ptr;}private:     T*  ptr;    // other functionalities...};
     

 

 

 

 

reference:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_pointer

- http://ootips.org/yonat/4dev/smart-pointers.html