The unique_ptr class is constructed with a pointer to the object it will maintain. This class provides the operator * to give access to the object, dereferencing the wrapped pointer. It also provides the -> operator, so that if the pointer is for a class, you can access the members through the wrapped pointer.
The following allocates an object on the free store and manually maintains its lifetime:
void f1() { int* p = new int; *p = 42; cout << *p << endl; delete p; }
In this case, you get a pointer to the memory on the free store allocated for an int. To access the memory--either to write to it or read from it--you dereference the pointer with the * operator. When you are finished with the pointer, you ...
