Table of Contents
Glib::RefPtr
is a smartpointer. Specifically, it is a
reference-counting smartpointer. You might be familiar with
std::auto_ptr<>
, which is also a smartpointer, but
Glib::RefPtr<>
is much simpler, and more useful. We
expect a future version of the C++ Standard Library to contain a
reference-counting shared smartpointer, and a future version of gtkmm might possibly use that instead.
A smartpointer acts much like a normal pointer. Here are a few examples.
You can copy RefPtr
s, just like normal pointers. But
unlike normal pointers, you don't need to worry about deleting the underlying
instance.
Glib::RefPtr<Gdk::Pixbuf> refPixbuf = Gdk::Pixbuf::create_from_file(filename); Glib::RefPtr<Gdk::Pixbuf> refPixbuf2 = refPixbuf;
Of course this means that you can store RefPtr
s in
standard containers, such as std::vector
or
std::list
.
std::list< Glib::RefPtr<Gdk::Pixbuf> > listPixbufs; Glib::RefPtr<Gdk::Pixbuf> refPixbuf = Gdk::Pixbuf::create_from_file(filename); listPixbufs.push_back(refPixbuf);