STL class for reference-counted pointers?

Question

This should be trivial but I can't seem to find it (unless no such class exists!)

What's the STL class (or set of classes) for smart pointers?

UPDATE

Thanks for the responses,
I must say I'm surprised there's no standard implementation.

I ended up using this one: http://archive.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1060.asp

Answer 1

With the exception of the already mentionned TR1 shared_ptr, there is no reference-counted pointer in STL.

I suggest you use boost::shared_ptr (downloading boost will be enough, there is nothing to compile, its implementation is header-only).

You may also want to have a look at smart pointers from Loki libraries (again, header-only implementation).

For an overview of available smart pointers, see there.

Answer 2

If you don't want/can't use Boost and your compiler implements TR1, you can use shared_ptr (borrowed from Boost):

#include <tr1/memory>

...

std::tr1::shared_ptr<Foo> ptr(new Foo);

Otherwise, no, there are no smart pointers except std::auto_ptr in vanilla STL.

Answer 3

Time marches on, in C++11:

std::shared_ptr
std::weak_ptr

etc.

Answer 4

For COM objects, use CComPtr<>.

Answer 5

There is an alternative implemented for some time in STL PLUS, see at source forge

"STLplus was originally intended as a library to extend the STL by providing missing container data structures such as smart-pointers, matrices, trees and graphs."