Requirements for a handle

We present in this chapter the concept of a handle to an object of type T. Basically a handle to an object of type T behaves like a pointer to an object of type T except that it has no increment nor decrement operators and does not deal with memory allocation or deallocation. Essentially a handle has two operators * and -> which gives access to the object pointed to.

Types

typedef T

value_type;

Creation

Handle<T> ht;
	ht references no object.
Handle<T> ht ( hr);
	copy constructor
Handle<T> ht ( T* pt);
	constructs a reference from a pointer T*.

Handle<T>&	ht = T* pr	ht points to the object *pr
Handle<T>&	ht = pr	ht and pr point to the same object.

Dereference

T&	* ht	returns the object pointed to.
T*	ht ->	returns a pointer to the object pointed to.

Equality