What is purpose of a “this” pointer in C++? [duplicate]

Answer 1

It also allows objects to delete themselves. This is used in smart pointers implementation, COM programming and (I think) XPCOM.

The code looks like this (excerpt from some larger code):

class counted_ptr
{
private:
    counted_ptr(const counted_ptr&);
    void operator =(const counted_ptr&);

    raw_ptr_type            _ptr;
    volatile unsigned int   _refcount;
    delete_function         _deleter;
public:

    counted_ptr(raw_ptr_type const ptr, delete_function deleter)
        : _ptr(ptr), _refcount(1), _deleter(deleter) {}
    ~counted_ptr() { (*_deleter)(_ptr); }
    unsigned int addref() { return ++_refcount; }
    unsigned int release()
    {
        unsigned int retval = --_refcount;
        if(0 == retval)
>>>>>>>>        delete this;
        return retval;
    }
    raw_ptr_type get() { return _ptr; }
};