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...ing pointer in that regard) > so there's no benefit in enforcing smart pointer usage at creation. I believe there is. Like const member functions it helps ensure that ownership is transferred clearly. It's not hard to write bugs like: T *t = create(); ... if (error) return; // leak set_thing(t); // transfer ownership here By making create return a std::unique_ptr, it discourages these kinds of misuses. > Apart from the complexity and visual clutter, it's pretty annoying to have > to decide whether to get(), release() or somehow else acquire the object you > just created....

There seems to be some uncertainty about the use of smart pointers (previously OwningPtr, now std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr predominantly) in the LLVM project as a whole, so here's a thread to discuss/clarify/etc the project preferences/direction with regard to smart pointer usage. For some context, see discussions in LLVM r212403 and Clang r213307. The basic question here seems to be