From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-27 14:36:16
John Torjo wrote:
> Ben Hutchings wrote:
>
>> expired() may read the count as still being 1 and so return false,
>> but I believe the wnd_shared_ptr constructor will catch the fact
>> that the pointer really has expired. Unfortunately I can't yet
>> see the code to confirm this!
>
> By looking at the code, I would think not. But I may be wrong.
As the comment says, the if( expired() ) test is only an optimization.
Remove it if it makes you feel better. ;-)
The main idea is that a weak_ptr can never transition by itself from an
expired() state back to a !expired() state unless you explicitly assign to
it.
Because you are in weak_ptr::lock at the moment - a read access - you know
that no other threads assign to *this, because this would be a violation of
the "basic thread safety" requirements.
Therefore, if expired() returns true, it will continue returning true for
the foreseeable future, and you can skip the rest of lock().