| Rosetta 3.3 Release Manual |
ReferenceCount is a base class for intrusive reference-counted classes that is designed to work with owning_ptr. A class that inherits from ReferenceCount gets the machinery for shared-ownership management by owning_ptr. Having the root class of a single inheritance hierarchy inherit from ReferenceCount makes all of the classes in its hierarchy compatible with owning_ptr.
ReferenceCount can also be used in a multiple inheritance hierarchy if the root class using virtual inheritance for ReferenceCount (to avoid multiple instances of the counter if the inheritance hierarchy has diamond-shaped inheritance relationships). Because ReferenceCount is not a pure interface class it is not suitable for use in a Decorator pattern hierarchy because multiple copies of the counter would be present: ReferenceCountMI should be used in those situations.
1.7.4
