[vtkusers] vtkSmartPointer usage question

[Jeff Baumes]

>
> The only thing is  not clear  for me is how to force smartpointer to
> release the data.
>
>
Is this what you're looking for?

vtkSmartPointer<vtkType> sp = vtkSmartPointer<vtkType>::New();
...
sp = NULL; // Release would happen here.

This would decrement the reference count of the object by one. If no one
else holds a reference count of the object (i.e. reference count goes to
zero), it will be released from memory.

Normally you just wait for the smart pointer to go out of scope. If you
explicitly need to make the reference go away at a certain point, you might
as well not use smart pointers and just do this equivalent code:

vtkType* p = vtkType::New();
...
p->Delete();

Jeff
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