If de-referencing a NULL pointer is an invalid thing to do, how should auto pointers be implemented?
<p>I thought dereferencing a NULL pointer was dangerous, if so then what about this implementation of an auto_ptr?</p>

<p><a href="http://ootips.org/yonat/4dev/smart-pointers.html" rel="nofollow">http://ootips.org/yonat/4dev/smart-pointers.html</a></p>

<p>If the default constructor is invoked without a parameter the internal pointer will be NULL, then when operator*() is invoked won't that be dereferencing a null pointer?</p>

<p>Therefore what is the industrial strength implementation of this function?</p>
