id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
10112	improved shared_ptr visualizer and weak_ptr	murray read at ccdc	fkonvick	"I was trying out the boost::shared_ptr visualizer for Visual Studio 2010, here https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/boost_docs/subprojects/DebuggerVisualizers/shared_ptr.vis.txt

It's ok, but it doesn't show very much. The typical display is:

shared_ptr {...} count = ...

While experimenting with the visualizer, I made several observations:

1) If you view a pointer rather than a dereferenced pointer, you see both the address (which is useful) and more content in the referenced object (which is very useful)

2) Our normal use of shared_ptr is as a pointer. The usage count is not normally something we want to know about. By removing the text formatting, and only showing the pointer in the preview, we see far more content in the referenced object (even more useful)

3) The children are displayed in alphabetic order. It's most useful to be able to see and expand ""ptr"" in the children. Renaming ""count"" to ""use_count"" puts ""ptr"" at the top, where it belongs.

4) weak_ptr can be visualized the same way.

An example boost::shared_ptr is now previewed as:

0x18467058 {parent_bond_=0x184546e0 {type_={...} polymeric_=false annotations_={...} ...} mol_=0x18448768 {m_=0x1246c5ac {impl_={...} annotations_={...} } impl_={...} proxy_atom_creator_={...} ...} graphic_properties_=0x00000000 }

{{{
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;  boost::shared_ptr
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------

boost::shared_ptr<*>{
	preview
	( 
		($T1 *)$c.px
	)
	children
	( 
		#( 
			ptr: (($T1 *)$c.px) ,
			use_count: $c.pn.pi_->use_count_ ,
			weak_count: $c.pn.pi_->weak_count_
		)
	)
}

;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;  boost::weak_ptr
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------

boost::weak_ptr<*>{
	preview
	( 
		($T1 *)$c.px
	)
	children
	( 
		#( 
			ptr: (($T1 *)$c.px) ,
			use_count: $c.pn.pi_->use_count_ ,
			weak_count: $c.pn.pi_->weak_count_
		)
	)
}
}}}"	Feature Requests	new	To Be Determined	smart_ptr	Boost 1.54.0	Optimization