A: The simplest instance of a smart pointer is auto_ptr that is included in the standard C++ library. Auto Pointer only takes care of Memory leak & does nothing regarding dangling pointers issue. You can determine it in the header . Here is part of auto_ptr's implementation, to illustrate what it does:

template class auto_ptr

{

T* ptr;

public:

explicit auto_ptr(T* p = 0) : ptr(p) {}

~auto_ptr() {delete ptr;}

T& operator*() {return *ptr;} T* operator->() {return ptr;}

// ...

};

As you can illustrate, auto_ptr is a simple wrapper around a regular pointer. It forwards all significant operations to this pointer (dereferencing & indirection). Its elegance within the destructor: the destructor takes care of deleting the pointer.

For the user of auto_ptr, it means that rather then writing:

void foo()

{

MyClass* p(new MyClass);

p->DoSomething();

delete p;

}

You can write down following:

void foo()

{

auto_ptr p(new MyClass);

p->DoSomething();

}

And trust p to clean up after itself.