Objects Own Resources (RAII)
Visual Studio 2012
Make sure that objects own resources. This principle is also known as “resource acquisition is initialization” or “RAII.”
Pass every “new” object as a constructor argument to another named object that owns it (almost always unique_ptr).
void f() { unique_ptr<widget> p( new widget(…) ); my_class x( new widget() ); … } // automatic destruction and deallocation for both widget objects // automatic exception safety, as if “finally { p->dispose(); x.w.dispose(); }”
Always immediately pass any new resource to another object that owns it.
void g() { other_class y( OpenFile() ); … } // automatic closing and release for file resource // automatic exception safety, as if “finally { y.file.dispose(); }”
