title: C++ using scoped_ptr as a member variable
body: <p>Just wanted opinions on a design question. If you have a C++ class than owns other objects, would you use smart pointers to achieve this?</p>
  
  <pre><code>class Example {
  public: 
    // ...
  
  private:
    boost::scoped_ptr&lt;Owned&gt; data;
  };
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The 'Owned' object can't be stored by value because it may change through the lifetime of the object. </p>
  
  <p>My view of it is that on the one side, you make it clear that the object is owned and ensure its deletion, but on the flipside, you could easily just have a regular pointer and delete it in the destructor. Is this overkill?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Follow up:</strong> Just wanted to say thanks for all your answers. Thanks for the heads-up about auto_ptr leaving the other object with a NULL pointer when the whole object is copied, I have used auto_ptr extensively but had not thought of that yet. I make basically all my classes boost::noncopyable unless I have a good reason, so there's nothing to worry about there. And thanks also for the information on memory leaks in exceptions, that's good to know too. I try not to write things which could cause exceptions in the constructor anyway - there are better ways of doing that - so that shouldn't be a problem.</p>
  
  <p>I just had another question though. What I wanted when I asked this question was to know whether anyone actually did this, and you all seem to mention that it's a good idea theoretically, but no one's said they actually do it. Which surprises me! Certainly one object owning a pointer to another is not a new idea, I would have expected you all would have done it before at some point. What's going on?</p>