A Refcounted Array Type

[Michel Fortin via Digitalmars-d]

On 2015-02-23 22:15:46 +0000, Walter Bright said:

> int* count;
> 
> [...] if (count && --*count == 0) [...]

Careful!

This isn't memory safe and you have to thank the GC for it. If you ever 
use RCArray as a member variable in a class, the RCArray destructor is 
going to be called from a random thread when the class destructor is 
run. If some thread has a stack reference to the array you have a race.

You have to use an atomic counter unless you can prove the RCArray 
struct will never be put in a GC-managed context. It is rather sad that 
the language has no way to enforce such a restriction, and also that 
@safe cannot detect that this is a problem here.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/