C++ High Performance

Object ownership and garbage collection in C++

Except in very rare situations, a C++ programmer should leave the memory handling to containers and smart pointers and never have to rely on manual memory handling.

To put it clearly, the garbage collection model in Java could almost be emulated in C++ by using std::shared_ptr for every object. Note that garbage-collecting languages don't use the same algorithm for allocation tracking as std::shared_ptr. The std::shared_ptr is a smart pointer based on a reference-counting algorithm that will leak memory if objects have cyclic dependencies. Garbage-collecting languages have more sophisticated methods that can handle and free cyclic dependent objects.

However, rather than relying on a garbage collector, ...